Echo Flux
by nathan-p
Summary: Two hundred years from now, the world has changed greatly. When Liam Hamilton discovers a book that will change all history, it becomes clear that the time for a revolution has arrived at last. AU, slash, dubcon, violence, pretentiousness. High T for sex. If you're reading this, I am so sorry for this entire story.
1. Introduction

As of tonight, this has gone through at least three introductions -- I think that's a record. Anyway. What you need to know follows.

Due to the nature of this novel (it was mainly written over the course of two novel-writing months), there are a few extremely boring chapters. While I do give you a licence to skim them, I really do think that all of the chapters are an important part of the whole novel, and that you'll be missing out if you skip the boring parts. (Egregious word-padding is excused. There's some that's downright heinous.)

If you've ever experienced a Russian novel (especially Dostoevsky or Tolstoy), the style of the novel at large will be a familiar one to you. It's long. Characters introduced seemingly at random later have important parts. The chapters are gigantic.

As the reader, I think you deserve to be warned of what lies ahead. Besides the Work-Safe boring pretentiousness mentioned above, I warn you of the following:

Slash.

An absence of Fax. (Although they're married, they're just about two hundred years old, which means no raunchy sex _or_ fluff. However, there is some egregious fluff involving other couples ahead. And no raunchy sex, unless, for some reason, I _really_ needed padding that day.)

Glorious, glorious Narm and/or wangst at certain points.

Rape.

Violence (intermingled with the aforementioned Narm and wangst). Lots of violence, and lots of profanity.

If you haven't heard me nattering on about this in the past nine months, you may have been living under a rock. But, essentially, this is a story about a girl living in a world where Maximum Ride rules, and how she and her buddies accidentally start a revolution. (Part two is, of course, the revolution. Said part two is still in the "make up a plot" phase.)

As far as canon goes, here's the rough timeline:

The books (of which I'm counting only the first three as canon) take place in 2004 and 2005. Mass executions and trials of School and Itex employees occur in 2008. The book picks up in roughly 2206, with some events occurring before that year.

I would now like to thank the people who've made this possible.

Some of them, I've forgotten their names -- but I know that I called on the Fireplace's denizens for help once, and so I have to credit you guys, as well as whichever posters on the NaNo forums were nice enough to answer my bizarre questions.

By name, I'd also like to thank, not the Academy, but Maiyri, carino, mergirl007, and the other Maximum Ride writers in our tiny sub-community who've been kind enough to keep me going, even when I lost sight of where the hell I was going in the first place.

And, as always, many thanks to my real-life friends, especially Saphira112 and Doometh (as they're known on here), who have been absolutely indispensable to me, even when I _wasn't_ working on this.

As far as disclaimers and permissions go, I am playing in James Patterson's sandbox here, though I have taken many, _many_ liberties with it. Archive if you want to. If you like the 'verse enough to want to fic for it, go ahead. Please, credit me, though.

Updates roughly once a week, though I have many, _many_ pages already written.

You may also find it helpful to have a list of important characters. I recommend a notecard...


	2. Prologue

Prologue : City

Miss Tanith walked down the boardwalk, Molly trailing behind her. "Hurry up, girl!" she called, not unkindly, turning back to look at her.

Molly nodded and lugged their wheeled suitcases faster . . . well, a little faster, but it was the best she could do. Their wheels clicked and clacked on the close - laid boards, which was a comforting sound to Molly because it was like a horse's hooves on the paths she knew around Miss Tanith's estate. The hiss and wail of the steam train was also familiar to Molly, though not as familiar as the click and tick of the suitcases, because the late night trains passed close by the estate -- or close enough that Molly could hear them on those late nights when she laid awake, denied sleep by the endlessly interesting sounds around her. The wailing of their whistles disturbed her -- made her think of awful crimes, and she shivered then in remembrance of those lonely nights.

"Molly!" said Miss Tanith curtly.

Molly, abruptly jerked from her reverie, looked blindly about as if she had been unceremoniously dumped onto that spot from her comfortable bed. "What, Miz Tanith?" she asked, as politely as she could, though it had been impossible to get even a bit of rest on the train, with the clacking of the wheels and the wail of the whistle.

"You almost stepped into the street," said Miss Tanith. "Now come along, that's Uncle's carriage over there."

Molly stepped as lively as she could through the crowded street to the carriage Miss Tanith was climbing into. She put the suitcases in the care of the driver, an aged man of somewhere between thirty and sixty, and got into the carriage with Miss Tanith.

Also in the carriage was a man whom Miss Tanith introduced to her as Uncle Robert, who greeted Miss Tanith with warmth, and a woman, who introduced herself to Molly as Anamaria, Uncle Robert's maidservant.

"Why, where have you come from, Molly?" asked Anamaria, deftly brushing dust from Molly's jacket and skirt.

"Miz Tanith lives in the Outlands," said Molly as demurely as she could, glancing nervously at Miss Tanith herself. She was engaged in conversation with Uncle Robert.

"And where do you live, then?" said Anamaria, now straightening Molly's sleeves. "The sky?"

Molly blushed deeply and immediately felt guilty and embarrassed for blushing in front of this higher - ranking servant. "I live with Miz Tanith," she said, and restrained herself from feeling her face to be sure it was not, in fact, on fire.

"I see," said Anamaria. "Well then, tell me why you're here. Master Robert and Miz Tanith don't give a care if you say, and I would dearly like to hear."

Molly embarked on the telling of her brief life's story.

"I have been with Miz Tanith for three years," said she, "and Miz Margaret, her daughter, took sick a while ago, and so I was obliged to come here with her to see her daughter, and it was a terribly long train journey."

"What, you've never trained in to the city before?" asked Anamaria.

"No," said Molly. "I've never left the Outlands before."

Anamaria paled for a moment. "The Outlands?"

"Yes," said Molly. Having no idea what she ought to say next, she stared out the window of the carriage into the streets.

It was such a remarkable world, these . . . Inlands, Molly supposed they would be called. This capitol city, into which all trade flowed. Carriages and men on horseback crowded the street, with a light level of air traffic some twenty or thirty feet above, just over the roofpeaks.

In the Outlands, it was not unusual to see a woman in pants if she were going out riding, nor was it unusual to see a servant dressed immodestly for ease of washing up. Here, though --

A centaur trotted down the middle of the street, clothed in nothing but a flowing, voluminous shirt - dress which was cut to just above the hooves. Above her flew a man with wings, who was clothed quite sensibly in loose pants and a button - up shirt.

And yet, all around were a full range of bizarre dress and behavior. Molly concentrated on the familiar dress of the servants.

The carriage clattered to a stop, and Molly looked about her in surprise. That was one of her worse qualities, that tendency to daydream.

"Come along," said Miss Tanith, and Molly stepped out of the carriage.

It was loud. The train station had been full of hustle and bustle, what with the steam engines and the chatter of people, but this city; this city was loud, with the clatter of hooves on cobblestone -- which was familiar to Molly, but not in such amounts as here -- the endless loud chatter of the people in the streets, and the endless noise of carriage wheels, steam train whistles, and clattering shoes.

But Molly had no time to stare at the wonders of the city; Anamaria was already tugging impatiently at her arm, suitcases in hand, while Miss Tanith chatted with Uncle Robert.

"Come along," said Anamaria. "What's so interesting?"

Molly said nothing, but took hers and Miss Tanith's suitcases from Anamaria and followed her inside.


	3. Chapter One

Chapter One : Fascinating

Anamaria handed Molly off to another girl, who took Molly up the servants' stairs to the rooms where she and Miss Tanith would be staying. Molly set their suitcases down and set about the routine work of arranging Miss Tanith's clothes in their proper places. She hurried up another flight of stairs with her own suitcase in hand to the servants' quarters, where a different girl -- how many servants did this Uncle Robert have? -- took it from her and set it on the bed farthest from the door. Molly took her comb from the inside pocket, undid her pigtails, brushed out her hair, and rebraided her pigtails with clumsy fingers.

Just as she put her comb back into her suitcase, the servant who had taken her upstairs reappeared and said roughly, "Suppertime! Why aren't you downstairs?"

Molly replied timidly, "I arrived with Miz Tanith just a moment ago, and I was just going to ask when supper was."

"Well, supper is now," said the older girl. "Now come on, you'll be late. At least your hair is decent."

Even the accents were different in the city, thought Molly as she followed the older girl down the servants' stairs. The older girl's words were harsher than Annabelle's soft drawl at home, harsher even than Miss Tanith's clipped voice, although Miss Tanith had been raised and lived out fully half her life in this city before she had retired to the Outlands.

Molly trailed behind the other girl into the eating room, where the other servants sat.

"All right," said the older girl. "This is Molly. She's come from the Outlands with Miss Tanith. So don't make fun of her or nut."

Molly puzzled over the last word before deciding that it must be nowt, or nothing. What a thick accent this girl had!

The girl turned to Molly, displaying a wholly unexpected soft side to her manner. "My name is Stephanie, thankya," said she. "You're Molly of the Outlands, no?"

Molly nodded.

"Oh, I see. The train, isn't it?" she said.

Molly nodded again.

"The train's the worst part," said Stephanie. "I been with Mister Robert almost my complement, and the train was the worst part, followed by the street."

"She came from the Outlands, you know," added the girl to Molly's left. "Seven years old. How old're you?"

"Ten, I think," said Molly. "Miss Tanith says so, anyhow."

Allow a pause in the story, Reader. Imagine what you would know as a drawling, vaguely English voice speaking the dialogue above. The tees are crisp, the aitches nearly absent, the ohs stretched into an aow sound -- in general, a slurring voice, an uneducated voice in all ways which stretches some sounds and chops others short.

"I see, I see," said the girl to the left. " 'ere, take the potatoes," and she passed Molly the potatoes. "Yoah too skinny, Molly. Be taken foar a skellington warking down the street."

Molly used the spoon and dug a scoop of potatoes, which she put on her plate. She glanced about and, seeing the other girls eating, began to eat.

The potatoes tasted familiar, like the ones Cook had made back home, with some butter mixed in it for taste. Molly asked Stephanie if she could have a second serving.

" 'Ere's the peas," said Stephanie, and Molly scooped out a spoonful, which she ate.

After supper, Stephanie led Molly back upstairs, where she and the other girls took turns washing in a bathtub - full of wash water. Some of the girls moaned on about the dirtiness of the water; Stephanie said that these were also visitors from out of town.

Washed, Stephanie took it upon herself to explain to Molly her duties while she was here.

"What did you do in the Outlands?" she asked.

"For Miss Tanith?" Molly said redundantly. For a moment she was swept up in a tide of memory -- Annabelle teaching her how to sew, the sunset over the plains and mountains, the servants' porch where she sat at Annabelle's feet, clumsily sewing patches onto her dresses. "Well, Annabelle was training me to be a seamstress."

"Annabelle?" asked Stephanie. "I knew an Annabelle, but it's common. Seamstress?"

"Yes," said Molly. "And then Miz Margaret took sick, and Miz Tanith being her mother, I was obliged to come with her."

"Miz Tanith's Margaret's aunt," said Stephanie. "What, she told you she was her mother?"

"Well, that's what I heard," said Molly defensively.

"No matter," said Stephanie. "Miz Tanith was like Margaret's mother, I 'eard, and so it's the same anyow." She eyed Molly's hair. "Mind if I braid your hair? I do it for all the girls."

"Yes," said Molly. Annabelle had taught her how to put her hair into pigtails just before Miss Margaret had taken sick, and Molly didn't think she had it quite right yet. Besides, it was easier to let Stephanie braid her hair.


	4. Chapter Two

Chapter Two : Tell Me a Story

Molly lay awake, staring into the night. She considered the rough plaster of the ceiling, the skein of moonlight from the window high up in the gable. She looked at the stars and adjusted the collar of her nightgown.

She heard a murmuring voice, repeating the 23d Psalm.

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want," said the voice. "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me . . . "

She closed her eyes and thought about the green fields back home. How the grass waved in the wind like a skirt when a lady danced and looked like velvet in the breeze. The way the light fell on autumn afternoons, to make everything look like a memory, or a dream of a dream. The blue sky like God's dancing eyes looking down from Heaven.

She hung motionless in the void, somewhere between back there awake and up ahead, asleep. She listened to the voice reciting the Psalm, and she felt warm. She heard music up ahead, and then she was there.

She dreamed confusedly of the fields in November with the long grass like blond hair before the wind which drove down from the north, and Annabelle beckoned her, beckoned her out to the field, and cupped something precious in her hands.

And then it was morning, dim - lit morning again, and she was rising back into the void, where she hung until Stephanie shook her by the shoulder and called her back to the world of waking people.

"Get up," said she, and Molly was awake.

"Yes," she said drowsily. "I'm up."

"Follow Anna over there. After you get dressed, I mean. She'll take you to sewing."

Anna had long brown hair up in a ponytail with little braids falling from it, very prettily, thought Molly. She was at least two or three years older than Molly.

Anna looked her up and down for a moment before saying, "Well, come on then. Let's go."

Molly nodded and followed the older girl down the servants' stairs into the sunroom, which was equipped with a sewing machine, presumably steam - powered from the pipes feeding into and out of it. It was accompanied by a cuckoo clock hanging on the wall, obviously clockwork.

Anna sat down at the sewing machine. "Can you use a sewing machine?" she asked.

"No," said Molly.

"Can you embroider, then?" said the older girl.

"Of course," said Molly. "It was the first thing Annabelle taught me." And the first thing any decent girl learns, she added to herself. She had brought one of her half - finished samplers along to work on while she was in the city.

"Then you'll wait here while I get Sarah. She has some things you ought to work on." said Anna, who rose from her seat and went into another room, presumably to fetch Sarah.

Anna returned shortly, accompanied by a girl of about sixteen or so whose long blond hair was tied up in a tradeswoman's bun. "Sarah, this is Molly," said Anna.

Sarah nodded to Anna in dismissal, and Anna left the room in deference to the older girl. She set down her armful of cloth on the table next to the sewing machine and curtsied neatly to Molly.

Molly curtsied in return, seeing that the cloth was bits of petticoats, waiting for repairs and finishing.

"These are Miz Margaret's," said Sarah. "I'll be finishing them, and you'll be patching them. You've brought needle and thread?"

"No," said Molly.

"Oh, don't be afraid," said Sarah kindly, seeing Molly's fear. "I may be a tradeswoman already, but you need not act as though I were your lady. You're perhaps but six years younger than me -- Anna told me."

Sarah sat down at the sewing machine and took the topmost petticoat from the stack. She began to sew.

"You're with Miz Tanith, I presume?" said Sarah, as the steam hissed through the pipes. "Ouch! -- don't touch that, either, it'll burn!"

"Yes," said Molly.

Sarah glanced at the younger girl, seated primly on the floor before her, and scoffed.

"Oh, take a chair!" she said vengefully, and took her foot off the treadle to suck her injured finger. "Miz Tanith isn't here to see you 'disrespect' me, so relax." She indicated a chair to her left, where Molly sat, chagrined.

"You cannot be more than fourteen," said Sarah, beginning to sew again.

"Ten," said Molly in a small voice.

"Ten?" said Sarah incredulously. Her foot, neatly booted, worked up and down on the treadle. "Why, I thought you were -- Well, nevertheless, you've no need to fear me." And Sarah unselfconsciously lifted her skirt and petticoats, to reveal a hideously burned leg, visible even through her stocking and its strange metal bonds. "There, do you see?" Sarah dropped her skirt again to hide the disfiguration, all the while sewing. "Do you want to know what happened?" Sarah laughed. It was a curiously free laugh, and despite her disfigurement, Molly wished that she could be like the older girl, so free and careless. It was bitter. "I stepped in the cookfire. I was eight. Eight! Two years younger than you are now, Molly!" She stopped sewing and laughed again, bitterly. "Yet Master Downey did not cast me out, worthless as I became with two burned and ruined legs. He kept me on, and he taught me how to sew. He himself taught me, Molly!" She sewed on, viciously, speaking as she did so. "And now I work for whom I will, and I am paid well. All because I stepped into that damned cookfire!" She laughed, softly this time. "I think I'm frightening you again, Molly. Please forgive me." She glanced at Molly, pausing in her sewing. "What do you want to say?"

Molly shook her head. "No -- nothing."

"Oh, come now!" said Sarah, looking at the petticoat with a scrutinizing eye. "Obviously you want to say something, I can see it in your eyes."

"I -- I," said Molly, for what she wanted to ask was indefinable. "I -- I wanted to know. Who Master Downey is."

"Who, or what?" said Sarah. "He's a gentleman, and he's a chemist. That is what he's. Hmmph -- this one's done." She flung the petticoat at Molly, who held it in her lap. "Oh, you want thread and needle, do you? On the table, next to the lamp base. Got it?"

She watched as Molly picked up the needle and threaded it deftly. "I miss having small hands," she remarked. "Easier to thread a needle, but this device does that for you." Sarah patted the sewing machine affectionately, causing it to wheeze and her to wince. "Ouch! Still hot!" She sucked on her finger and then continued where she had left off. "As to who he's, well, he's kind and rather feminine --"

"I'm sorry," said Molly, "but what does that mean?"

"It means he's more like a lord than a lady sometimes, but not as often as he's more like a lady than a lord," said Sarah, not at all curtly. "He knows how to sew for one, but being a chemist, I suppose that he would. Chemists, you ought to know, tend to burn themselves or cut themselves accidentally far too much, and then have to sew up their wounds. It's odd, though, that he's so -- good at sewing up cloth rather than flesh. But he's kind, most definitely -- after all, he did not cast out his ruined servant girl to a beggar's life on the street, as most would. Even your sainted Miz Margaret and her aunt have done so, God willing - - " and Sarah crossed herself, a ritual which Molly watched with bafflement "—and don't disbelieve me, either. He taught me to sew, and he taught me how to live. He cared for me, Molly, like a father does his daughter. Remember his name, Molly. He will be good to you."

Sarah watched as Molly finished patching the petticoat. "Devilment!" she exclaimed, seeing how well the patch blended with the fabric. "Who taught you to sew?"

"Annabelle," said Molly, gazing at her work modestly and trying to suppress the flaming blush in her cheeks.

"Who?" said Sarah.

"One of Miz Tanith's other servants," said Molly shyly, now sure that her entire face was deeply red.

"I should have supposed so, for that is artful work," said Sarah. "She taught you that style, I suppose. Your stitches are very neat -- I'm afraid I've lost that art. Two years since I sewed last by hand. If you should see Master Downey on the street -- and you will know him, for he's gone half - blind of late, a sad state of affairs if ever there was one -- his fine coat was my handiwork. All by hand, I'll have you know. And in only a month, as a present before I left him."

"Why did you leave him, if he was so good to you?" asked Molly, rather impertinently, and immediately regretted it.

Sarah looked at her with a questioning eye. "I'll dismiss that one for now," she said, "but mind your tongue hereafter. I left because I wished to see the world -- and because he had had made for me these braces I wear." She hoisted her skirt and petticoats, revealing those odd, shining metal cases to Molly before modestly dropping them once more. "See those? Impractically expensive -- he paid far too much for them. But they fit perfectly, and I can walk or run as I please, like a young girl again. I left him to pay back his braces, and I've almost enough saved in my skirt pocket to repay him and enquire to be employed by him once more. Once I've enough to repay him in full -- and more! -- then I'll return to him. A good enough answer?" She looked at Molly questioningly, and touched the sewing machine with the back of her hand. "Hmm. Cold enough to work with."

She picked up the second petticoat and began to sew. Molly saw that even though she talked almost incessantly, she had a true talent for sewing, and an almost mysterious affinity for the curious sewing machine. Molly had seen but one before, somewhere she barely remembered, for she had been taken there as a very small child.

"Master Downey taught me to use one of these too," she said. "He found a steam man who helped him assemble it on a board so that I could use it while I was in bed. Of course I couldn't use the treadle until I was well again, so he had it set up for my hand to work. He had to teach me how to fix it, as well, for his wife -- well, his wife was unavailable to call a manservant to fix it. It's a simple machine, mind you. The steam's a bit touchy, though, and I've burned myself enough times to tell you that. See these pipes along the sides?" Sarah indicated the copper pipes along the machine's flanks. "Don't ever touch them when it's running, or you'll ruin those fine hands of yours."

They sewed in companionable silence for a while, until Anna came in and told them it was time for a midday meal.

Sarah rose from her chair and flicked the switch on the side of the machine to 'off'. "Come along then," she said to Molly. "You'll have to help me a bit down the stairs -- Master Roberts had his built oddly steep, and I find myself falling down them rather than walking down them more often than I like."

They went down the stairs and into the eating room, where Sarah seated herself next to Molly.

"I ought to have met you yesterday," said Sarah. "I leave soon, though; just before supper, in fact."

"Then that's why you two didn't meet," said Stephanie, interjecting rather rudely. "Molly didn't get here until just before supper."

They ate in silence for a moment before Sarah and Molly went back to their sewing again.

Molly looked out the window into the fading sun, thinking of home. Miss Tanith had named it, but its name now seemed to have slipped from her mind effortlessly, like a butterfly into air.

"Does this house have a name?" she asked, as Sarah sewed away.

"Hmm." Sarah paused in her work and turned up the steam. "Yes, I think. Steven -- the cook's boy -- says it's called Greenhame, but I don't know to believe him. He came here with Master Robert when Miz Margaret was very small. This house is not old," she said, sewing again. "It's very young, as houses go. Older than me, perhaps, but only by a few scant years." Sarah looked at Molly. "Is Miz Tanith's place very old?"

"Yes," said Molly, looking at her sewing intensely. "Her great - grandfather built it. Just after the . . . the . . . " She looked up at Sarah briefly, questioning.

"The Flux?" completed Sarah. "That's what -- well, it's the name for that business. Master Hollis taught me so."

Molly glanced up at her shyly, unpicking a few of her tiny stitches.

"Oh, yes," said Sarah. "I couldn't be sewing all the time, could I? And it was a fair lonely piece when he was away. He taught me to write my name and some of history, and a good bit of playing the flute. I could show you -- if I had a flute. And he taught me some Verses and Maxims -- " Sarah enunciated these words carefully, as if to emphasize their importance " -- like this."

Molly sewed on.

Sarah closed her eyes and began to recite.

" ' . . . And this mad choir, this choir of simians we call humanity, outstepped itself in its attempts to be God or His assistant. And they fell . . . ' " Sarah opened her eyes and began to sew, rhythmically.

The hiss and whir of the steam - powered sewing machine was the only sound for a moment.

"And some of the Psalms as well," added Sarah. She looked at the younger girl shyly. "Do you know them?"

"Yes," said Molly inaccurately. Her religious education extended no further than the Lord's Prayer -- in Cook's weird patois -- and the 23d Psalm as Annabelle had recited it with her, the night before she left.

"Would you like to recite it with me?" she said shyly.

"Why not?" said Molly.

"The Lord is my Shepherd," said Sarah.

"The Lord is my Shepherd," echoed Molly.

"I shall not want."

"I shall not want."

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures."

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures."

"He leadeth me beside the still waters."

"He leadeth me beside the still waters."

"He restoreth my soul."

"He restoreth my soul."

"He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake."

"He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake."

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death."

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death."

"I will fear no evil: for thou art with me."

"I will fear no evil: for thou art with me."

"Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

"Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

"Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies."

"Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies."

"Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over."

"Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over."

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life."

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life."

"And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever."

"And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." finished Molly.

Sarah muttered under her breath, a blur of strange words, and crossed herself.

"Why do you do that?" asked Molly, innocuously.

Sarah looked at her curiously for a moment. "I'm Catholic," she said after a moment. "It means I believe in the Christian God. That Jesus Christ was the son of the Lord."

Molly stared at her, uncomprehendingly.

Sarah sighed deeply and set to sewing again. "I suppose I'd best explain, then," said she.

"There was a man," she began, pumping the treadle with her foot. "He was born in a place called Bethlehem, and his name was Jesus. Now, his mother was Mary, and his father was Joseph. His mother Mary was told that her son would be called Jesus. She was a virgin, and to preserve her honor she married Joseph, who kindly took her in.

"They were in Bethlehem one winter night just before Jesus was born, and they went looking for an inn. But there were no rooms for them anywhere they went, and so they came at last to the last inn in town, whose owner kept a stable.

"Now, there were no rooms in the inn, but the innkeeper pitied them, and so he offered that they sleep in the stable with the animals.

"And they went into the stable, and soon after Jesus was born, and Mary wrapped him in a swaddling cloth and put him in the manger for a cradle. A brilliant star appeared above that humble stable, and far away three wise men saw the star. And they knew that beneath that star was a King, the King of all men born and yet unborn.

"The four wise men rode for several days and as many nights until they came to that humble stable where Jesus lay in a manger. They had come far, from the East, and with them they brought gifts, rich gifts for the King of men. They brought with them gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

"And the wise men were told by God that the king Herod intended to slaughter all children who were less than two years of age. And so they told Joseph and Mary of this, and with Jesus they fled to Egypt."

And Sarah went on and on. Molly listened from time to time, catching the important sentences here and there.

When at last Sarah finished, it was supper time.

The older girl stretched and glanced at Molly, who was at work embroidering the hem of her second petticoat. "Supper time, Molly," she said curtly.

They went down to supper, and afterwards Molly sewed until the sun had set entirely, for candles were too precious at the time to be used for lighting rooms after it had grown dark. There was a war on, after all.

"A war?" Molly asked at supper.

"Yes," said Maria, who was only visiting, because she had come along with the man who was fixing the grandfather clock in the hall, as well as Master Robert's precious car. "Why, didn't you know?"

"No, she didn't," said Stephanie. "She's been cooped up in the Outlands, poor dear."

"Oh, well then," said Maria. "It's nothing to worry about; the war is well to our north, up at the border. Master George -- the clock man -- says that he's heard from his friend on leave that General Scott has almost won the war for us."

The girls made quiet celebratory noises around their little table.

"Oh, he's so romantic," sighed Anna. "Such a dashing man. Why, I heard from Roseanne at market that he receives so many love notes that he requires a special mail courier."

"Loose lips sink ships," muttered Stephanie, staring morosely into her plate, which she would have to wash after.

"We don't fight with ships," said Maria promptly.

"Not anymore," said Anna smartly. She nodded to the portrait on the wall, an exhibition of skill by Miss Margaret herself in paints.

It, of course, depicted the King and Queen together. They appeared quite some years younger than they were at the time. Miss Margaret had painted it from a daguerreotype taken in the early years of their reign, and the only imperfections were some anachronisms in dress -- such as a hairstyle which the Queen had only taken to within Margaret's lifetime.

"But you know what I meant," said Stephanie.

"Of course," said Anna. "It just . . . it's not right anymore."

"Of course not," said Maria confidently. "The only man's way to fight a war is with swords. Any other way takes you further away from your enemy. That's cowardly. Simply cowardly." She looked around the table, and the other girls nodded their assent.

Now, Reader, you have noticed Molly's silence in this tale of war. The entire tale is told for her benefit, and she as yet feels awkward and uncomfortable in her new environs. Molly is, then, excused from speech for a short period of time.

Let's withdraw from the action for a moment, and allow some time to gain perspective on this situation.

Molly is seated in the kitchen of what we may call a brownstone in the old section of the city. This is a respectably - situationed house, for it is only blocks from the hustle and bustle of the city -- a short carriage ride, or a walk for a servant or robust young man. It is well - appointed, and one of the oldest houses in the city. Its occupants are modestly well - off, enough so that they can get by with ease, yet not so rich that they stand out like beacons.

This downtown neighborhood houses the great Cathedral where Master Downey once took his servant Sarah to Mass, which was built rather recently -- or should I say, finished recently. Cathedrals are long in the building, Reader. Practically next door to the Cathedral -- which, I should note, is the Cathedral of Saint Judas Thaddeus in proper naming -- is the Royal Palace, where the King and Queen hold court.

The Palace is -- why, it's palatial, of course. Velvet curtains drape the windows, cast by the finest glassworkers. The stained glass and wall art were worked by fine artists, as were the sculptures that stand in its halls. The wood is local, of an unsurpassed beauty, and was shaped by carpenters who are better described as artists. The animals kept by the King and Queen are treated as well as or better than some of the servants in the city surrounding. The Palace represents a true Renaissance of art, for art has not been seen in this real, yet clouded, quality since the time of da Vinci. Sculpture of this like has not been seen since Michelangelo.

Within easy eye - sight of the Palace are the Laboratories, and it is here that the most highly monitored activities in the city take place.

Here, and here only, chemists fiddle with their vials, biologists feed their white mice, physicists swing their pendulums and dream of universes large or small . . . and it is also here that five geneticists carefully alter the very destinies of some few small animals. These men (and woman) were hand - picked to pursue their dreams here in the capitol city, and here, though they live within a stone's throw of the Palace, they perform their experiments with aplomb and dexterity. Science is a guarded field in this country, and they are proud to be protected. For though they are constantly watched and always in the spotlight, their activities are paid attention to. No matter how withdrawing they are, they seek the spotlight, one and all -- and they're not far from it.

Let's pass over the Newspaper (for it is of almost no consequence -- those who are literate would still rather rely on hearsay from friends than reported news, and those who are illiterate -- well, there's no point) and go straight on to Parliament.

Parliament appears silly and functionless, but it is not. It is almost purposeless, but men of Parliament are highly esteemed and, on occasion, actually assist the King and Queen in their decisions. Parliament itself is rather austerely and dourly decorated, with one notable exception -- the red velvet which hangs about its windows. This is the one flare of color in this subdued structure, like spilled blood on a dour black overcoat.

Around these central buildings live the nobility, and here, we should note, resides the Prime Minister, who is of little consequence to Molly at the time, but may become of importance to her later.

Now, let's travel a little further out, and further north. Here we arrive at the battlefields. To the jaded reader of earlier times, it appears an almost calm place. Bucolic and peaceful -- until, that is, we dip closer to the earth, and the scars of horses' hooves and soldiers' camping become evident. Sword battles leave few marks but the stain of blood on the earth, but by the cavalry's hooves alone we can read their progress. Here, some few days ago, passed the heroic, the dashing, the somewhat fearful General Scott with his troops. He's a kind man, and wishes very little more than to be at home with his wife, who is expecting their first child. He hopes it will be a son, to be followed by a daughter. He intends to name the son Samuel and the daughter Mary, and plans to retire to the Outlands. How successful his plans are depends on the outcome of this next battle.

And now, let's retire back "home" to the city, for night is falling, chasing daylight across the land. But before we retire to the house from which we began, let's note one thing:

In the downtown quarter, there is a man standing out in the street. He looks up at the moon, and he thinks:

What if Parliament burns?

He sees the marvelous red velvet curtains burning, sees that dark wood floors and beams aflame. Before him in the dreadful light of imagination run screaming men, cloaked in fiery overcoats. Yet that image of the flaming curtains returns to him.

What if Parliament burns?

He steps back outside, and the only noise is the wail of a steam train's whistle somewhere outside the city.

Then all is silence.


	5. Chapter Three, part I

Chapter Three : What Makes the Heart Beat

Molly lay awake, murmuring the Psalm under her breath:

"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever."

And she thought about God.

God, who she had been taught was a man who presided over his fearful people, created in his own image, but who had sinned, and who he had cast out and denied. He only fitfully took claim to them even now, casting doubt among those who wore his own face.

God, who had chosen His People, once, at the beginning of the world. She had begun to doubt that he had chosen these people who seemed to her now so fitful and indecisive, so fragile and so delicate -- these people who, it was said, had been her own progenitors once. Before Ham looked in upon his naked drunken father and made a spectacle of him -- before Man was cast out of his comfortable Eden and became imperfect again.

She had been taught that her own race of plain - faced, simple - bodied people were merely the race created by the open mockery of a son against his father. That for one sin her people had been cursed with open, simple faces and simple, unadorned bodies -- cursed with plain clothes and plain mannerisms, when all about them walked the beauty and wild freedom of their lost brothers.

But also she had been taught that she and all her race were destined for heaven. For, having faced such hell in their lives, they surely were intended for paradise. Heretics had speculated, from Martin Luther on, that God had created this slave race in his image -- and his masters in his idealized image. That God could have been imperfect -- could have idealized his own perfect image -- seemed impossible. But it seemed it could never be proved, nor disproved.

She looked at the moonlight spilling through the single undraped window. She remembered Annabelle -- the closest thing she remembered having to a mother -- who had held her close against the night.

Who had told her, once, on a stormy (later moonlit) night, that God was in the rain. And that God was in the lightning, and the glass of the window. In the green grass, and in the dark portentous clouds. In the moonlight and in the timid starlight, afraid of itself and of others. That God was in all things. That God was in Annabelle, and also in her.

She had never feared the dark again, for Reader, in Molly was the peasant's simple faith in God. If God had sent Annabelle to banish her fear, then surely she need never fear again.

She lay and looked at the moonlight, and it seemed for a moment that she could hear the cries of battle -- so silent, it seemed, but in contrast to what she did not know. She heard the clinking of swords and the neighing of horses; she heard the muffled boom of faraway thunder and rain falling on the drum - like skin of the tent; she heard the too - loud patter of blood on earth. She heard screams and sighs, and at last, she discovered, she was asleep.

And then it was morning, Sunday morning to be more exact.

"Don't you have any nice clothes?" asked Stephanie, sighing as she looked over Molly's dresses.

"Why, what do you mean?" said Molly.

Stephanie sighed. "I might have something from when I was your age," she said. "Let me see." She rummaged about in her own small trunk, and pulled out a worn pink dress. "Will this do?"

Molly looked at it dubiously. "Yes," she said, meaning no.

"Put it on," said Stephanie, tossing Molly the dress. It was overly long in the fashions of three years before, and Molly hated it instantly.

Molly considered the dress for a moment before slipping it on over her corset (which Stephanie had done the stays on), pantalets, and shift. The sleeves were puffed, after the fashion of the time it had been made in.

"Have you got your shoes on yet?" said Stephanie impatiently.

Molly had.

She followed Stephanie down the servants' stairs and out the back door, where "Jeeves" the butler was waiting with the carriage for Miss Margaret, Miss Tanith, and Master Robert. Stephanie nodded to him and they hurried past him and into awell - kept little alley. They went through the alley and continued onto an unfamiliar street, where they borded a bus That is, I mean an omnibus, but my screen is blanked. So I cannot exactly go backand correct myself, can I , rReader?

The bus was clean, and it was occupied by other sservant in theirSunday best. A woman dressed in dark pink -- almostred -- made eye contact with Molly.

I am very sorry, Reader. Let me go back and correct that.

Molly followed Stephanie down the servants' stairs and out the back door, where "Jeeves" the butler was waiting with the carriage for Misses Margaret and Tanith, as well as Master Robert. Stephanie nodded to him and they hurried past him and into a well - kept little alley in back of the house. They went through the alley and continued onto a street which was unfamiliar to Molly, where they boarded an omnibus.

The omnibus was clean, and it was occupied by other servants in their Sunday best. A woman dressed in dark pink -- almost a daring red -- made eye contact with Molly, and Molly smiled shyly.

The omnibus was clean, and it was also clockwork, and in need of a winding at that. Its gears clicked and wheezed as it worked its way toward the cathedral which dominated the skyline to their north.

"We are going there?" asked Molly in what she felt was too loud a whisper.

"What?" asked Stephanie.

"The cathedral?" continued Molly. "Oh. We are going to the cathedral?"

"No," said Stephanie, and looked to the north. "Oh, do you mean St. Jude's? That building straight ahead? That's just a church." She gestured east. "That's the cathedral."

Molly looked east, and gasped.

Beside an unfamiliar blocky building -- in the Roman style she was familiar with from the villas of home -- rose a building in the Gothic style, all buttresses and points in grey stone. It rose at least a hundred -- or two hundred, or three hundred -- feet above the houses around it, giving the impression that it had grown up through the houses -- Molly half expected to see bits of houses impaled on its pointed spires.

"See all that grey stone it's built with?" said the woman in dark pink. "Quarried fifty miles from here. They trained it in."

Molly gaped at the cathedral. Besides those grey sides that heaved up at the sky, its western side -- that is, the side she was looking at -- bore a huge, beautiful stained glass window.

"That's Saint Michael killing the dragon," said the woman in dark pink.

It was. There he stood, cast in glass ten feet high, spearing the vile dragon with a calm, kind expression on his face, as if he were feeding a cat. His familiar, wolfish face gazed down at Molly.

"Thank you, miss," said Stephanie. "Molly is . . . new. She just got here."

The woman in dark pink laughed. "I'm new, too. Twenty years here -- I'll be new until I die."

She and Stephanie laughed.

"My name's Evelyn Michaels," she continued, and put out her hand for Stephanie to shake. "I'm a geneticist."

The car fell silent after she dropped this casual fact.

"And an octoroon," she continued. "Which is half the reason I ride this 'bus. The other half --" and she looked around, evidently locating old friends of hers aboard the 'bus "—is because I like it. I prefer you all to the snooty misses who take their own carriages."

The omnibus creaked to a stop in front of the glorious church, which was now twice as glorious even beside the beauty of the Cathedral. Evelyn stepped off first, bidding Molly good - bye.

"Oh dear," said Stephanie.

"What?" asked Molly as they, too, took their leave of the omnibus.

"Well, that's Miz Evelyn," said Stephanie, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the woman in dark pink, who had gone inside the church. "I don't mean she's a bad woman, but -- well, don't associate with her. That's all."

Molly followed Stephanie into the Church of Saint Jude, wondering why she ought not to associate with Miss Evelyn, if she was such a nice lady.


	6. Chapter Three, part II

Liam Hamilton ought to be in church right now. In fact, as far as everyone is concerned, he's. Hollis agreed to vouch for his presence. Well, Liam now owes Hollis a favor . . . besides fetching him books.

Liam is prowling through the stacks. In an earlier time, he knows, he'd have to keep an eye open for patrons. Except the library isn't even open yet . . . and you cannot get in without an authorized pass. So Liam prowls quite fearlessly about the stacks.

Liam is about fifty. He's not tall, nor fat. He's getting a little stout as he ages, he thinks, and shrinking every year. If Liam knew that half the women (and a scant handful of the men) think him boyishly handsome, why, he'd blush a brilliant red. This is one of Liam's flaws -- his blush. It's terribly cute, though.

He has brown hair, which he wears in a ponytail that makes him look even more like a schoolboy, and plain brown eyes. They're not deep black, nor are they almost tannish -- they are plain and brown. Earthy -- if eyes can be likened to dirt. Liam does not believe they can.

He wears affected plaid suits which date him as someone very comfortable with history -- for they're two hundred years out of style. They are modestly colored -- the most daring are red check on brown, which he wore on his first day here -- and fit him well.

Liam once wanted to be a historian -- in fact, he still does. He's become the master of reference, the dean of history, the yogi of . . . despair, because when he cracks his involved jokes borrowed from period books, no one understands. Except for Leslie, who worries him, being that she's very young and choosing to spend her life here.

Liam does not want to work here. He wants to write papers like his idols from the Age of Oil. He wants to gallivant about the countryside lecturing on the 1940s -- his favorite time period -- and write books about the World Wars. He confuses these infrequently -- or, well, he did. He has since cleared up his misunderstandings, with the assistance of the other reference librarian and some period books.

Liam is not just a reference librarian. He's also a runner of books, and he specializes in delivering "orders" of reference books to the scientists who work just a block away. He favors roller skates for these short runs, because he thinks it gives him the air of a drive - through worker. In fact, it makes him seem pleasingly eccentric -- which was half the point, anyway.

It is dark in the library, because he has not bothered to light any candles and the ridiculous steam lights never work for long. He would use a torch, like his secret hero Indiana Jones, but he despises smoke and refuses to. Instead he prowls about with a lantern in hand, lifting the cover to see the shelves. The windows are neatly shuttered, for though natural light would greatly assist the scholars, there are almost none of late. It is only Liam, and sometimes Leslie or the other reference librarian.

Today he's thinking. Liam once considered becoming a writer of historical fiction, before he realized that very few read historical fiction more complicated than dreams of the Age of Oil or the Space Age. He intended to write realistic adventures set in the Age of Oil. It is one of his dreams to ride in a motorcar, instead of the rattly horsedrawn carriages or the clattering, wheezing clockwork omnibuses or even the comparatively smooth - running steam trains. When he has to train somewhere -- which he has done to acquire rare books from collectors -- he imagines that he's in the Age of Oil, in a motorcar, speeding along their smooth roads on rubber tires.

Liam is thinking about an idea he had once. About the soldiers in the Second World War -- he refers to it, even mentally, with initial capitals.

He drops in on Late Twentieth Century to quickly read the shelf. It is terribly out of order -- was Leslie in here? No, he remembers the other reference librarian coming down here for something. He must have muddled everything up.

Liam begins with the top shelf and works his way down, slowly. He has to hold his lantern in one hand as he reads, because if he sets it on the shelf behind him his shadow covers the books he's trying to order. This is awkward, but he doesn't mind. He has done it this way for years now, and he's well used to this inconvenient setup.

Liam finishes the penultimate shelf and, mentally preparing himself, kneels. He flicks through the books rather desultorily, absently thinking of that novel he planned to write.

What's this? The gleam of his lantern catches a reflection off something that's fallen down the back of the shelf and got caught between it and the next shelf.

Liam sets the lantern down and feels around behind the shelf for the book. It's dusty and slick - feeling.

He pulls it out and gasps.

It's covered carefully in a plastic cover, which is rare enough. And it has a barcode on the front, which, he knows, were discontinued from use at the end of the Age of Oil.

Which means that even if it weren't the remarkable creature it is, it's over two hundred years old.

He holds it reverentially for a moment, and inhales the smell of decomposing book glue from its spine -- it's a smell he loves, which his friend Hollis tells him might be damaging his brain. What a pair they'd be then -- blind chemist and mad librarian. He rather likes that, actually -- mad librarian. Has a ring to it.

He blinks and stares down at this remarkable book. If it is what it claims to be, then at the least he should read it before getting it cleaned -- and he will clean it himself, because he feels a frisson of danger as he looks at it. Possession of a book that claims what this one would seem to claim is a dangerous crime. He could be sent away to the Outlands if Hollis calls in some favors for him. Or he could be stripped of his freedom and sent Up North, away from the life he loves down here. What is it, a month's ride on a steamer? And in chains, no doubt.

He glances around -- not a soul, God bless them, everyone's in church except for the girl in Fiction, Modern who says she's Jewish. Liam is pretty sure she actually is. He just has a feeling about it.

He cradles the book in his right hand, balancing the lantern in his left, and walks over to one of their study tables. He knows there's a proper word for those -- carrels, he thinks, kind of like the children's author -- but he still calls them study tables.

He sets the lantern down and fetches out his spare handkerchief, too much darned but well capable of serving as a makeshift sanitary surface. He would hate to hurt this book.

Liam opens the shade on the lantern, then sets the book down on the spread handkerchief. He sighs and seats himself on the provided chair, which creaks under what he thinks of as his ample weight. Leslie thinks he should "eat a goddamn sandwich" -- Leslie, whose adoration is the culture at the end of the Age of Oil, when there was a wild kingdom which held dominion over the very air. Or so she recalls. She loves to imitate the jargon of the time, though.

He opens the book, cradling the front cover with his hand as he does so. Liam wants to be back in his comfortable office, with this book in the special device he once helped Hollis make, after he started his current work and had his first sightless day. Hollis had had an idea to make a device to gently cradle test tubes while he poured into them . . .

Liam remembers it vividly.

"Hold this," says a somewhat - younger Hollis to a roughly - the - same Liam -- Liam has never seemed to age. He's looked "about fifty" since his twenties.

Liam holds it.

"Now . . . " Hollis feels the location of Liam's hands with light, delicate hands. He ought to have been a musician, Liam sometimes thinks. Hollis moves Liam's left hand a little. "Screw it in. As tight as it goes. Tighter, if you can manage."

Hollis winks, and it's an eerie sight. Normally there's someone looking out of the wink. Not this one. It's empty.

. . . and Liam built two. One for his own use, and one for Hollis's chemicals. Hollis patented the device, and by this gets a little money every year -- other chemists use them sometimes.

"Other chemists?" says Hollis's voice in Liam's head. Sometimes Liam's memories are only auditory. Like someone stole the actual movie for a movie, and left only the sound. Or better, like a radio play, but more bare - bones.

"Other chemists?" Hollis says laughingly. It's light laughter with a bitter edge. Like an iceberg or a cake of ice floating in water -- so smooth on top, but so sharp and jagged underneath. "I work alone, my dear Liam." This is a pretense he affects -- Liam had read him some Sherlock Holmes stories once, and Hollis had jokingly suggested that Liam become an actor. He has a nice voice, very steady and sure, with just the right amount of emotion. Liam denied Hollis's joking suggestion -- he's never been able to sing. And all the popular actors sing. " 'Other chemists' . . . well, you know what happened in my past with 'other chemists'. I prefer solitude to their company."

Liam had known exactly what Hollis meant, and so it went unsaid. And Hollis had always been a solitary type, anyway -- even before.

Liam shakes aside the memory with a sharp jerk of his head to the left, and looks to the book.

Liam begins to read, and although he's a fast reader, it is perhaps only his fast reflexes that save him. It takes him about two hours to read the book, and he's left gasping with its implications.

The book seems to be a slightly fictionalized account (the years are imprecise, something he hates as a historian -- he loves to have things in place, events clearly dated) of the youth of the King and Queen. He wants to dismiss it as mere fantasy, but this book is old. The copyright page in the front says it: "Copyright 2007."

And it has so much right, and so he has no choice but to consider his mind blown, his worldview totally shattered, as if someone had thrown a stick of dynamite into the neat stacks of what he considers rational and true, scattering some things, singeing others, and outright blasting some to bits. Smithereens, as he likes to say.

He's mulling this all over when he hears footsteps. He leaps up and replaces the book on the shelf. He'll have to dust this shelf, he noticed earlier -- seems no one is interested in how the late twentieth century (and early twenty - first) expressed itself through fiction. Shame.

He snatches his handkerchief off the table -- and that is when he has to sneeze.

"AHCHOO!" sneezes Liam Hamilton, and the footsteps laughs. It's only Leslie, after all.

"God bless you," she says. "I didn't see you at church."

This is almost an accusation, but he blows it off.

"I went to early service," he says.

She nods.

"So I had a bit to myself and -- you know how I am. I thought I'd do a little pleasure reading. Thought you were the other reff man, and dove to put my novel away."

Leslie smiles. "Which was it?"

Liam fetches out a book from the shelf -- Catch - 22. He hands it carefully to Leslie, who cradles it in her hands much as he did the treasure he just found.

"Ooh," she says, turning it over to admire it and read the jacket summary. "Is it good?"

"Oh yes," says Liam, taking the book back. "I enjoyed it, and you know how I am with its time period." He winks at her. "You want to read it, though, you'll have to check it out."

"Of course," she says politely, and one of her ears twitches impatiently. "Listen, though, what did you think of the sermon today?"

Leslie chatters on, and Liam listens amiably enough.

He's composing what he's going to say when he next runs some books to his friends down the block. He's planning what he's going to say to the man almost everyone knows as Doktor X -- new, but one of Hollis's close friends, and so also one of Liam's.

"Doctor!" he'll say, handing him that book he requested -- some work talking about early genetics -- and being as politely thrilled as he can. "You'll never dream what I've found!"

The Doktor, as people like to call him -- always with that Germanic "k" sound in the middle; well, mock - Germanic really, Liam speaks German haltingly enough to know -- is almost obsessed with the end of the Age of Oil. He knows a great deal (and, he told Liam once, is planning to write a book) about the subject, and is always eager for more information. He's also fascinated by the monarchy -- in fact, does relation charts for fun sometimes.

So Liam thinks that this will thrill him. And he thinks, also, that the Doktor will know what to do, surely.

Liam listens to Leslie, occasionally interjecting some platitude -- if that word means what he recalls it meaning -- about how the sermonizer spoke at his early service, which he, of course, did not, in fact, attend.

Yes, Liam definitely owes Hollis a favor. Dinner will do, he thinks. Dinner may just serve. He knows just the restaurant, actually.


	7. Chapter Three, part III

Meanwhile, Molly was sitting in church, fascinated as always by religion. She was entranced by the fine stained glass windows which surrounded her -- Christ preaching on the Mount, Christ crucified, the Mother Mary, saints she knows, and saints she has no knowledge of at all.

They had been seated for thirty minutes, and the last latecomers were trickling in. Beside her, Stephanie was reciting an unfamiliar prayer.

"Pater noster, qui es in caelis: sanctificetur Nomen Tuum; adveniat Regnum Tuum; fiat voluntas Tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra. Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie; et dimitte nobis debita nostra, Sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris; et ne nos inducas in tentationem; sed libera nos a Malo."

"Stephanie," hissed Molly, in a reverential tone she felt to be quite fitting for a church. "What was that?"

"Pater noster . . . " began Stephanie. "Oh, what? It's Latin. Do you know it the other way, then?"

Stephanie looked at Molly for a moment, then sighed and recited:

"Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation ; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, For ever and ever. Amen."

Stephanie paused, then said, "That one, yes?"

"Oh yes, I know that one," said Molly hurriedly. "The Our Father?"

"I was taught it as the Lord's Prayer, but then again you don't speak Latin." Stephanie laughed. "It was a joke, girl -- laugh."

Molly laughed dutifully.

"Together?" said Molly timidly.

"Oh, why not," said Stephanie. "We've fifteen minutes yet."

"Our father," began Molly.

"Our father."

"Which art in heaven."

"Which art in heaven."

"Hallowed be thy name."

"Hallowed be thy name."

"Thy kingdom come."

"Thy kingdom come."

"Thy will be done."

"Thy will be done."

"On earth as it is in heaven."

"On earth as it is in heaven."

"Give us this day."

"Give us this day."

"Our daily bread."

"Our daily bread."

"And forgive us our trespasses."

"And forgive us our trespasses."

"As we forgive those who trespass."

"As we forgive those who trespass."

"Against us."

"Against us."

"And lead us not into temptation."

"And lead us not into temptation."

"But deliver us from evil."

"But deliver us from evil."

"For thine is the kingdom."

"For thine is the kingdom."

"The power."

"The power."

"And the glory."

"And the glory."

"For ever and ever."

"For ever and ever."

"Amen."

"Amen."

Stephanie looked at Molly, her face sweet with belief. Molly envied her in that moment. Molly had always craved the ability to believe, to believe whole - heartedly and take leaps of faith into the unknown -- and she achieved this sporadically, though she never knew it.

"Shall we say the 23d Psalm, then?" asked Stephanie with the eager face of a child.

" Let's ," said Molly.

They began.

"The Lord is my Shepherd," said Molly.

"The Lord is my Shepherd," echoed Stephanie.

"I shall not want."

"I shall not want."

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures."

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures."

"He leadeth me beside the still waters."

"He leadeth me beside the still waters."

"He restoreth my soul."

"He restoreth my soul."

"He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake."

"He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake."

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death."

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death."

"I will fear no evil: for thou art with me."

"I will fear no evil: for thou art with me."

"Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

"Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

"Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies."

"Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies."

"Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over."

"Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over."

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life."

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life."

"And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever."

"And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever."

"Amen."

"Amen."

The service that followed washed around Molly like water as she mulled over the simple words of the Psalm. What did it mean?

She didn't know.

And yet . . . it seemed comforting.


	8. Chapter Four, part I

Chapter Four: What You See, You Believe

Liam walks into his office and takes a sheet of paper off the stack beside his desk and his pen from its usual place. He sits down and thinks.

What should he write?

This is a note to himself so that he will remember to tell the Doktor tomorrow, so he need not fear proper wording and his propensity to get it wrong by using outdated phrasing. His penmanship may be deteriorating, which is awful because it means he sometimes has trouble deciphering his scribbles, and which is good because it's like a secret code that only he and Hollis can decipher. Hollis sometimes has to help Liam, though -- which is slightly embarrassing because it's Liam's handwriting.

Liam pauses for a moment, dips his pen, and begins to draft. This paper is almost used up, anyway -- it's covered in smeared pencil writing, and the top half full of notes to himself in pen. Both sides, even -- although Liam likes to use up one side before allowing himself to continue on the virginally clean second side -- are besmirched with Liam's trademark scribble. It almost looks like the proper cursive he was taught in school, but then again, it's really only a smudgy, hurried printing that smears its letters together like cursive. He borrows some letters from cursive anyway.

"Herr Doktor," he begins, the narrative voice in his head saying, as is his habit, "Air" for "Herr". At least it's almost proper German.

"Have discovered what appears to be authentic manu. dating from Age of Oil. Details youth of char. who appears to be Queen at young age. Authenticity confirmed by archaic plastic (!!) binding, barcode, copyr."

He pauses, then signs it in his slashing, pointy handwriting:

"Liam Hamilton, reference librarian."

Liam waits for the ink to dry, then folds it neatly into its own envelope. He labels the outside:

"Note to Myself. Do Not Touch; Personal Content Enclosed."

Leslie often wanders about in his office, fetching things or borrowing things. This is his code with her -- it means "Contains musings about either my family or a girlfriend, don't open or I'll die of embarrassment." Leslie has thought sometimes that he wouldn't die, just turn beet red in that really cute way he does.

He rethinks it, and opens the envelope, setting his pen down and resolving to just write thickly in pencil. He hopes it will not smudge.

"Appears to indicate non - continuous existence of servant class." He underlines it again for good measure.

If what he's just written (and double - underlined) is true, then he, Liam Hamilton, reference librarian (who wants to be a novelist or maybe a historian), holds the power to overthrow the government that keeps him where he's.

It's intoxicating -- power always is -- and kind of tempting.

He seals it again with neat, crisp folds, and lays it on the blotter.

Liam has never been really religious -- lost the faith before he turned seven -- but now he crosses himself. Just in case -- you know, in case something bad happens to him or Hollis. In case God is real.


	9. Chapter Four, part II

Meanwhile, Hollis is not pleased.

It is Sunday, and so he's not required to be at work. He's, instead, choosing to stalk through the city streets to his house, eschewing a carriage or an omnibus because he lives a short distance from the Cathedral.

Hollis is not angry -- although you would think that, to see the twisted expression on his face. The scowl is not because he's angry. It is because this is one of the rare days when the world clears in front of him, and he cannot work.

Hollis is going blind because, although he was otherwise well protected, he once had a chemical spray in his face. It was a new compound he had just created, and it was through painful personal experience that he learned it was highly reactive when combined with water. Quite the weapon, if one chose to use it that way.

So he stalks through the streets, his thin face scowling at anyone who dares to meet his gaze. Flocks of ladies scatter before him and gentlemen step aside.

Hollis has a thin face, but he's not tall. He's, in fact, rather short -- which gives the impression to some that he's a dour - faced preacher, shrunk by magical means, but still thin of face and sour of expression. His grey eyes complete the picture, for they possess that rare quality in eyes -- they are threatening, even when he's not looking out of them. His hair is brown and graying, cut short and spiky -- this is the only aspect of him which denies the shrunken - preacher look, for if he were to wear a ponytail it would complete the picture.

He affects clothes after the style of the sixteenth century professors -- the robes accentuate his thinness, and make him seem a little taller as well. In sum, he looks like a living anachronism, stalking down the streets.

Hollis is rather serene at heart, despite his dour, angry appearance. The few people who dare to persist in interacting with him eventually discover that, ironically, this furious preacher has a kind, soft heart. He despises this trait, for he prefers that people believe he's more likely to bite than bark, as it were.

His ears are twitching spastically as he takes in the sounds around him -- the endless chatter of the people, the clatter and wheeze of the omnibuses, the howl of a far away steam train. Hollis does not like noise.

At last he comes to his familiar house. He goes through the gate and locks it behind him, proceeding up the path to the door.

Hollis's house is a nice house, styled after the Southern manors he knew as a child, although of course it is not possessed of the sweeping grounds so familiar to him from his childhood. It is a pearl - grey color, which is befitting, for it is a close match to the clouds overhead.

Hollis opens the door and steps inside. He removes his shoes and sets them on the rack. He sees that it has moved almost three inches left since last Sunday, and he moves it to its usual position. This spell of clear seeing may pass today, or tomorrow, or not for a week or longer, and so Hollis wants to be sure that when he needs them, his things will be where they ought to be.

He goes down the hall and turns left into his study, where he closes the door behind him.

Alone at last, Hollis sighs and stretches deeply. He's very tired, after hardly sleeping this past week in pursuit of his latest discovery, and he wants nothing more than to lie down on the couch in the corner for a rest.

The cat meows at the door, and Hollis opens the door to let him in.

His cat is called James. James is about two years old, although Hollis is not quite sure -- James was not purchased or gifted to him. The cat simply appeared one day, and afterwards has companionably lived with Hollis for the following five years.

James is rather plain, even for a cat. He has brown fur and curious brown eyes, which he turns up to Hollis now. The cat is fully sighted, all the time, and Hollis rather envies him.

Hollis says, "Hello, James."

The cat meows back. Hollis fancies that the cat is saying, "Hello to you too."

James has sometimes served as a guide for Hollis, nudging his ankles in the right direction when he's about to walk into a wall. However, he's only a cat, and sometimes Hollis then finds himself waiting while James chases a mouse or paws at the cabinet. Hollis teases the cat at these times, saying that the cat's more like his master than he knows, always after food. James puts his nose up in the air in denial and meows indignantly. Hollis imagines that he says, "Pot calling the kettle black!"

"How are you?" says Hollis, opening a drawer in his desk.

James meows, as if to say, "Well, I'm not sure, but I'm quite alright right now, thank you." The cat pauses, then meows again. "You're well, too?"

"Yes, I am well," says Hollis, taking his blindfold out of the drawer.

After the chemical "attacked" him, as he likes to put it sometimes, Hollis borrowed some mice from a geneticist he knows well and did experiments where he sprayed chemical into their eyes. By his inept math, Hollis judges that, since the mice went blind eventually, so will he. He supposes he may have as long as ten years before his sight is entirely gone, and so he's using that time as best he can as he drifts in and out of darkness.

So Hollis wears a blindfold at home, to simulate the blindness that will eventually be his only vision.

Hollis puts the blindfold on with a few practiced motions, then gets up from his chair. "James?" he says.

There's an answering meow from somewhere in the darkness which has engulfed him. It's to his left and up . . . James is on the shelf!

"We hadn't finished our conversation yet," says Hollis, moving towards the door, which he finds after only one stumble, which is over James. He apologizes profusely and admonishes the cat.

"James," he says, unlocking the door. "You cannot do that. You know I'm blind and cannot see where you are. Don't make me stumble, James. Cats cannot call doctors."

James meows, and Hollis imagines he says something like, "I could try, but it's true that my paws just aren't dexterous enough to manipulate that damn phone."

Hollis crosses the hall and goes into the kitchen, hand out before him -- the kitchen is sometimes locked.

The door is open, and so Hollis walks confidently into the kitchen.

"James?" he calls, and the cat brushes against his ankle. "There you are. Would you like some toast?"

"Yes," meows James.

"So, four slices then," says Hollis to himself, opening the bread box and fetching out four slices from the loaf that he sliced this morning. "I'm going to butter mine. What would you like, James?"

The cat considers for a moment, then nods. "Butter them," he says.

Hollis chuckles and puts the bread into the oven to toast. "I imagine you'd like milk as well?" he says.

"Yes," says James immediately. Hollis is not surprised in the least. It's mostly James's fault that they go through so much milk -- Hollis doesn't mind, though. It's a small price to have someone to talk to now.

His wife is still at church -- she attends a different one -- and he's given their two servants the day off. He imagines that they're at church now.

"James?" says Hollis. "Tell me when the toast is done."

James rubs jokingly against his ankle.

Hollis sighs and leans against the wall. He was fifteen once and taking his exams when he decided he would like a cat someday. He never dreamed he'd be talking to one. Nor did he ever dream the cat would talk back.

Hollis knows that it's likely James is just a simple cat who cannot understand him, but he believes fully that James is a talking cat. He almost never speaks around the other people in the house (and never ever around strangers), but Hollis ascribes that to simple feline shyness.

There's companionable silence for a moment, and Hollis imagines that the cat is also looking out into space, contemplating the existence of the universe.

James rubs against Hollis's ankle and meows, "The toast is done."

"Thank you, James," says Hollis, who turns off the steam and waits a moment before reaching into the oven and grabbing the toast. Holding the slices between the fingers of his hand, he takes two plates from the cabinet, then shuts the cabinet and sets the plate on the counter.

He puts two slices on each plate, aligns them so that one slice is lying flat, and goes over to where he remembers the icebox being. It's not there -- no, there it is, he discovers when he hits it with his shin.

Hollis opens the icebox and takes out the butter, then sets the butter on the counter and takes out the milk in its cold glass bottle. He takes the butter over to the counter with the plates and toast on it and takes the cover off.

"Where are the knives, James?" he asks. "Is it down, then first right, or down, then left?"

"Right," says James impatiently. "Hurry up. My toast is getting cold."

Hollis opens the drawer and feels around for the handle of a butter knife. He finds one and uses it to butter the toast.

Hollis turns left and with some degree of trepidation, throws the knife into the sink; it chimes off the porcelain. He opens the cabinet and gets a saucer from the shelf above the plates. He sets the saucer on the counter and gets the milk from where he set it down on the counter by the icebox.

By now, Hollis has been "blind" for about ten minutes, and his mental map of how the kitchen feels is firmly back in place. This is why he can throw the knife into the sink and not hit a cabinet, the cat, or anything else but the kitchen sink.

Hollis sets the milk down on the counter and then realizes that he needs the knife he just tossed into the sink to cut the toast into pieces for James. He sighs and gets another knife from the drawer, vowing to himself to wash these knives himself.

"James, will you get up on the counter, please?" Hollis asks.

James gets up on the counter and pats Hollis's hand with his paw. "Right here," he says.

"Thank you," says Hollis. It doesn't do to be impolite to a cat.

Hollis pauses for a moment. "It's triangles, right?" he asks.

"Yes," sighs the cat.

Hollis cuts James's two pieces of toast into four neat triangles. He picks up the milk and starts slowly pouring into the saucer.

"That's enough," says James, sharply, and Hollis stops pouring.

Hollis takes James's plate and sets it on the table. Beside it, he sets James's saucer of milk.

"Thank you," says James, and Hollis presumes that he then gets up on the table.

Hollis turns back and cuts his own toast into two rectangular pieces. Then he turns and throws the knife into the sink, again perfectly accurate and producing a chime when it lands in the sink.

Hollis eats his toast, leaning against the wall and thinking of nothing in particular. It's good toast.

He's getting around to thinking of his latest experiments when the phone rings.

Hollis chokes on a piece of toast at the unexpected sound, then rips off his blindfold and stumbles across the kitchen and into his study to get the phone.

He picks up the phone and says, "Hello?"

"What is it?" asks James, who has milk on his whiskers. James licks the milk off.

"Hollis," says the voice. "Liam here. I owe you a favor today. Can you come down tonight for dinner?"

"Yes," Hollis says. "What time?"

Liam says nothing for a moment, obviously considering his watch. "Six o' clock."

They hang up on each other.

Hollis considers the cat, then says, "James, did either of the girls say when they'd be back?"

"No," says the cat. "Expect them in a few minutes, though. My toast is getting cold." With that, the cat goes back into the kitchen to finish his toast and milk.

"Hurry up!" Hollis says after the cat. "I'd hate for you to get caught again."

"Yes!" says James impatiently.

The last time he gave James toast for lunch, he was caught in the middle of a rather pleasant conversation by one of the girls. She mildly upbraided him for giving the cat toast, but let him go, altogether.

Hollis sits down on the couch, and looks at his watch. Twelve o' clock noon. He has six hours. He has just eaten his lunch -- Hollis rarely eats what his colleagues consider a full lunch, and mostly eats only a little around lunchtime.

"James?" he says.

"What?" says the cat from the other room.

"If the girls aren't home, will you wake me at five o' clock, please?" That should give him enough time to neaten himself before he has to leave.

"Yes!" says James, exasperated.

"Thank you," says Hollis, more quietly. He shuts the door, but not all the way, so that if necessary, James can wake him at five o' clock. If he's that deeply asleep, that is.

Hollis takes off his house slippers and his coat, which he lays on the desk -- the coat, that is, not the slippers -- and puts the slippers on the floor beside the couch. He lies down on the couch, pulls the blanket over himself, and closes his eyes.

He's thinking about James's accent. One would expect a cat to be possessed of perfect diction with no discernable accent. This is not so with James. He has a definite Southern drawl, which reminds Hollis of his uncles and grandfather when he was growing up -- James is going to say something, but he will take his time saying it, and if you know what is good for you, you are going to listen. Patiently.

The cat slurs over his rs, Hollis has noticed, and even when he shouts, it's soft and polite.

How weird . . . but how exactly like a cat.

And then Hollis is startled awake by furry paws tapping at his hand.

"What?" he mumbles.

"Wake up, Hollis," says James.

"Urgh," says Hollis coherently, and he gets up, slipping on his house slippers and coat.

He walks into the kitchen and washes the knives in the sink, then dries them on the towel neatly folded beside the sink. He puts the knives into their place in the drawer, and turns back to the sink.

He runs a little water and washes his face and hands. He finger - combs his hair.

Hollis is ready to go.

He still has almost an hour left.

He sighs and stares out the window above the sink into the yard. The sun is starting to go down, and the light falls pleasingly on the trees.

Hollis is still looking when someone comes up behind him.

"Hello," he says, and he considers how the leaves look in the fading light. Sight is a treasure, he thinks.

Whoever is behind him touches his shoulder lightly and says, "Hello, Hollis."

Hollis turns around.

It's his wife.

"Afternoon, Evie," he says.

She smiles. "I see you've made James toast again."

Hollis's eyes widen.

"Of course I know," she says. "Did you think he didn't tell me?"

Hollis stares at her for a moment before she breaks the silence.

"Oh, I'm kidding!" she says, and laughs.

Then he wakes up.

James is looking at him mildly, sitting atop his chest. That is, the cat is sitting on Hollis's chest.

"What time is it?" Hollis asks groggily.

"Five o' clock," says James. "Although your watch says it's quarter 'til five."

Hollis dismisses this -- the damn cat has some kind of fascination with time -- and gets up. He's completely unwrinkled, and this makes him glad.

Hollis goes out of the room, putting on his coat as he does. He crosses the hall and goes into the kitchen, where one of the girls is standing, looking pensively out the window.

"Hello, Penny," says Hollis. "Is the tree blooming?"

"No," says Penny. "It's not spring anymore, Hollis." Penny is very familiar with Hollis -- they grew up together. However, where her accent has faded over the years they have spent companionably in the city, his has, if anything, intensified.

"Oh," says Hollis. He has been prone, since his accident with chemicals, to forget what season it is unless it is snowing, in which case he knows it is not summer. And if the tree out front is not blooming, then it is not spring. He relies on the girls and his wife to tell him what season it is.

"Is Evie home?" he asks.

Penny thinks for a while. "She was," she says carefully, "but then she took the carriage and went out."

"Hmm," says Hollis. "Well, Liam has invited me to dinner, so I was going to ask you if I could have the use of the carriage this evening. Do you know when the next 'bus is?"

Penny considers. "Yes. Four minutes from now."

"Oh my," says Hollis. "Well, then, I have to leave. Take good care of James."

"You and your cat," Penny says, sighing.

"You will, then," says Hollis confidently. "Good - bye, then."

"Good - bye," says Penny absently, returning to whatever her private thoughts may be.

Hollis walks out of the kitchen and back into the hall, where James is sitting on the floor, tail neatly curled around his paws.

"So you're leaving?" asks James.

Hollis nods. "Yes, I am," he whispers, even though Penny makes a point of tolerating his talking to the cat. "I'll be back soon."

"When are you not?" James says sarcastically.

"When I'm gone longer," Hollis shoots back.

"Who is it?" asks James.

"Whom do you think?" says Hollis. "Liam, of course. I . . . lied him an alibi . . . earlier."

" 'Lied him an alibi'?" says James pensively. "Whereever did you hear that?"

"Liam," says Hollis briefly. "Good - bye, James."

Hollis walks down the hall towards the front door, and sits on the bench to put on his shoes.

Shoes on, he walks out the front door.

The omnibus is wheezing and clanking its way toward whatever destination it may have, which, Hollis knows, will be downtown, by his favorite restaurant.

Hollis walks nonchalantly out into the middle of the street and steps aboard the omnibus, where he takes a seat.

The gears wheeze asthmatically, and Hollis thinks. He's thinking, specifically, about his friendship with Liam.

Hollis came to the city some years ago, partly because he was sent a letter which did not precisely request him to come and work at the Laboratories, but which got that intent across nevertheless. He came with a suitcase and Penny, having left everything else behind him (in the ruins, he adds, almost subconsciously -- a bright flash across the surface of his mind that he cannot quite catch).

Hollis went to the library on his first day in the city, having nowhere else to go. He was looking for something -- a book, he supposes -- when he ran into (quite literally) one of the junior librarians.

Hollis apologized, of course, but the librarian took an interest in him -- junior librarians, even then, did all the running of books to the Laboratories. And this junior librarian had never seen him before.

Hollis acquired a house, eventually, and settled into his work at the Laboratories. He maintained a courteous, distant relationship with the librarians, occasionally calling on them for a book or two he required.

Until his work, the work he had spent so long on, literally exploded in his face.

Hollis thinks that he was lucky not to lose an eye -- indeed, there is one man he has seen from time to time who had lost an eye in his work -- but when the chemicals exploded, an unexpectedly violent reaction, there was no room for anything between the acidy burning in his eyes and him.

He remembers stumbling in the dark -- he dreams of it occasionally -- but from then until he woke is a blessed blank. What he does not remember is this:

He tips the test tube of water carefully, and watches as the clear drops fall into the scant measure of his new compound below. This could be it --

Then he can see the dusty powder puffing up at his face, and he thinks, "Oh no" before it's in his eyes. It feels like sand and acid and kerosene on fire. He shrieks.

He stumbles backwards, and someone says:

"Hello, I'm Liam from the library, I have some books to deliver --" the voice breaks off, and Hollis cannot see why. "Oh my God!" Hollis hears a clatter of books falling to the floor.

And then someone is carrying him, and it is very cold.

Liam apologized later, when Hollis woke up, for the first time completely blind.

"I'm so sorry I startled you," he said, and Hollis laughed.

"Not your fault." he said. "It was unusually reactive." Hollis was already hoping that this spell of blindness would pass soon, so that he could return to his work.

Liam paid him no mind, and offered to recompense in some trivial way. Hollis accepted -- and in this way was their friendship born.

The trolley wheezes to a stop before Hollis's destination, and he steps neatly from it into the street. He walks across the cobbled street to the sidewalk, dodging traffic with the ease of long practice.

He stops at the sidewalk and looks up at the sign above his head. Reader, it doesn't matter what it said, because the last thing I need is a Reader - rush on Hollis' favorite eating establishment. Let's just say they have an English style.

Hollis walks into the bar, where Liam is waiting for him.

"Hello," says Liam.

"Hello," returns Hollis.


	10. Chapter Four, part III

Liam is cold, even though he's dressed warmly. He's shivering in his jacket, which is a plain brown jacket he keeps by the front hall of his house.

Liam lives with three others in a boarding - house run by an elderly lady. He cooks ineptly for himself and has a sort of friendship with his housemates, but mostly he dreams his dreams alone.

So Liam is glad that he has an opportunity to take a meal outside of his house, even at this comparatively early hour.

He's shivering miserably at the table when Hollis comes in.

"Hello," says Liam.

"Hello," says Hollis, and walks over to the table. He does not take off his jacket, and Liam asks:

"You're cold, too?"

"Of course," says Hollis. "I'm always cold."

Hollis had once lived in the Southern Outlands, where, Liam knew, it was much warmer, even in dim winter days such as these. He still had not adjusted to the chill of the Capital, though he had lived there for almost ten years. This was one of their private jokes -- Liam had been born in the Capital and still felt the chill, while Hollis had been called from the Southern Outlands and still felt it as well.

"Tea, then?" asks Liam, putting out his hand for a waiter.

"Sounds good," says Hollis.

The waiter shows up. She's rather young -- in her twenties at a high guess, Liam thinks -- with pretty blond hair and brown eyes. "What would you like?" she asks them, with no notepad in evidence. This waiter relies on her memory. Liam likes that.

"Tea, please," says Liam.

"What kind?" she returns.

"Black," says Hollis. "English style."

She raises her eyebrows, but says, "I'll be back in a moment."

Liam raises his eyebrows at Hollis, sarcastically.

Hollis raises his eyebrows back.

"Thanks for lying me an alibi this morning," says Liam. "I really couldn't come to church. I had some -- work to do."

Hollis asks no questions, but merely nods and says, "You're welcome. You'd do the same for me. Although you should fear for your immortal soul, skiving off church like that. God will smite you."

Neither of them are pious, and so Liam laughs in an undertone. Hollis is the joker -- he has the face for it, solemn and dour. No one expects the preacher to make jokes. Liam is the straight - man or fall guy -- he has the boyish face. Everyone expects him to be the clown, but he takes his work very seriously.

The waiter comes back with their tea -- that is, she arrives with teapot, two teacups, sugar, cream, and saucers. She sets this down on their table and nods to Liam.

"Thank you," he says.

"You're welcome," she returns.

Hollis looks at the teapot curiously, before he says to Liam, "She's forgotten the tea."

Liam laughs and pours himself a cup of tea. "It's in the teapot, you lunatic."

"Don't joke," says Hollis, pouring himself a cup as well. "My aunt was committed to a sanitarium when I was a boy. Very sad."

"So was my uncle," says Liam seriously. "Perhaps we are cousins."

Hollis laughs into his sleeve and adds sugar to his tea -- three cubes -- and pours in some cream. He considers the tea for a moment, and then stirs it with a teaspoon, which the waiter also thoughtfully provided.

Hollis sips his tea, as does Liam -- Liam never puts anything in his tea, as he doesn't believe in that custom -- and, as usual, Liam burns his tongue.

"I keep telling you," says Hollis. "You should at least put milk in your tea and you will not burn yourself as much."

"You're too much of a cat," says Liam jokingly. He's, however, thinking that that would cool the tea so he wouldn't burn himself so badly next time. However, Liam is not the kind of man to admit his having been wrong -- ever. He will admit he's wrong when he's on his deathbed, he has joked many times -- far too aptly, because this, in fact, will be his fate.

But let's not skip ahead, Reader. Let's stay right now.

"Have you heard anything of the war?" Hollis says cordially, because he has no idea what to say. He sips his tea.

"Oh, not much," says Liam. "I work in a library, not at the newspaper."

Hollis nods, smiles, and sips his tea.

"Well, I had heard," says Hollis, "that General Scott has just fought a very valiant battle up north. Perhaps you ought to pay more attention to the news."

"I ought," says Liam, absently, staring into the depths of his tea. He's wondering why they call it black tea, when it is clearly of an amber color; sometimes darker brown when brewed more strongly. Now, black coffee makes sense, because it is, indeed, black.

Hollis smirks, and Liam realizes he must have said all that aloud.

"Did I -- ?" he begins, and Hollis recites back at him:

" 'You know, I wonder why it's called black tea when it's obviously not black. It's more of an amber color, or if you take it stronger, it's dark brown. Now, black coffee, that makes sense -- y' don't add anything to it, and it really is black.' " Hollis laughs. "Satisfied?"

"Well, your memory's no worse than it's ever been," says Liam. They have known each other for a long time -- almost five years -- and Liam knows that Hollis' impeccable memory is one reason he's well known in the small world of the Laboratories.

"It's how I passed my Exams," says Hollis. This is mostly true -- Hollis' impeccable memory really extends only to his field and to conversation.

"You'd have made a fine federal agent," says Liam. He says this often to Hollis. The only problem with Hollis taking up this line of work is one he always states back to Liam when Liam makes this comment.

"I'm too Southern and we don't have them anymore," says Hollis, intensifying his drawl, which was mild to begin with. "So there's two problems with your theory."

Liam grins, but it barely shows in his mouth -- his ears quirk upwards and the corners of his eyes fold up into wrinkles -- before his expression falls back into one of wariness -- an expression he wears only seldom, and usually when he's searching out a stubborn book in the stacks.

"What?" asks Hollis in a hushed voice -- Hollis, besides his impeccable memory, easily picks up on facial expressions. The secret is the eyes, usually, he would say if anyone asked. Sometimes it's the mouth, but with Liam it's the eyes and ears.

"It's him," says Liam. "That new genetis -- genetic -- gene geek."

Hollis cannot quite place the description Liam gives, but he knows that his friend hardly, if ever, stutters or misplaces his words. It must be someone important.

Hollis turns his head to the right, observing the doorway first; no one is there. Ergo, this new person must be to his left.

Hollis turns his head to the left, closing his eyes and using his ears to focus in on the sounds in front of him. There are no sounds of alarm, and Hollis opens his eyes.

The new man is easy to spot. He's rather tall, and quite striking, even with his back turned to Hollis. He has dark blond hair in a condition that's easiest to describe as "poorly cut but well - kempt" -- it's almost long enough to tie back in a ponytail. He has straight posture, and he seems very aware of his environment -- one of his ears is cocked back, listening to the sounds around him. Hollis tries to focus in on his voice, and finally fixes on a vaguely European accent, sharp and thready among the other voices in the restaurant. This, Hollis decides, must be him.

Hollis turns back to Liam and recites:

"Probably the new geneticist -- " Hollis enunciates carefully, unaware that he's doing it "—he's European and looks it."

Liam raises an eyebrow and cocks both his ears forward. "Well?" he seems to be saying, though Liam actually says nothing at all. "Tell me how."

Hollis thinks for a moment, biting his lips, and begins:

"He's tall and rather thin, which tells me he's a European, as they are rather given to thinness. His hair is long for a man, which also tells me he's European, where hairstyles are . . . quite different from our own. He's very alert and has perfect posture, which tells me he's used to working with materials that may 'blow up in his face' at any time. Also, he has the only European accent here."

"My God," says Liam, sipping his tea, "you get more and more like Sherlock Holmes every day."

"It's your fault," says Hollis. "You're the one who introduced me to him." Hollis very much enjoys the stories about the charming, brilliant, somewhat eccentric detective and his (equally brilliant, Hollis believes) side - kick, James or maybe it's John Watson, medical doctor. "It's your own damn fault," Hollis says more carefully, "because now I am tempted to call you Watson."

"Which reminds me of a joke I've read," says Liam. "In some of the popular joke collections of the late twentieth and early twenty - first centuries, I've seen this joke repeated, and I'd like to tell it to you."

Hollis groans. "Ugh, not another one of your terrible jokes," he says in jest.

Liam goes on.

"So, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are chasing after a criminal, and this chase requires them to camp out in the middle of a field one night.

"Holmes wakes Watson in the middle of the night and says, 'Watson, tell me what you see.'

"Watson thinks for a moment, and then, determining to outdo his friend, begins:

" 'Well, I see there are a great many stars out tonight, and from that I can see that it is a very clear night, meteorologically. I also see that some God must have put all those stars there for us to look at, spiritually. And speculatively, I see that around some of those stars there may revolve planets, and on those planets there may be men such as we, who are also looking up at the stars and pondering our existence. So there, Holmes, that is what I see!'

"Holmes laughs and says, 'Watson, someone has stolen our tent!' "

Liam laughs merrily, and Hollis chuckles also. "That was a good one," says Hollis, "and here's another you may be familiar with."

Hollis clears his throat, sips his tea, and clears his throat again. Then he says:

"So," says Hollis, "a centurion -- Roman, of course, Liam -- goes into a drinking establishment and inquires of the bartender, 'Bartender! I want a martinus!'

"The bartender asks, 'Why, don't you mean a martini?'

"The centurion growls and says, 'When I want a double, I'll ask for one!' "

Liam laughs. "D' you think we'd better order dinner?" he asks.

Hollis thinks, then says, "Yes."

Liam puts out his hand for their waiter, and she comes along in a moment.

"Y' all ready to order?" she asks, and while Liam can only place her accent as being Southern, Hollis recognizes it as a familiar accent, one he grew up hearing. It's his own accent, the one everyone from his hometown speaks in.

"Sure are, sweetheart," he says, and he reads it in her eyes: she recognizes his accent, as well. "Calamari for me."

"Fish and chips," says Liam shyly. "Thank you."

"You're sure about that calamari?" she asks Hollis. "We are a fair way from the sea, Doctor." Hollis gets the feeling that she doesn't simply call everyone Doctor, as most of the waiters here do, that she just uses it because, somehow, she can read it in his face that his work is at the Laboratories.

Abstractly, he wonders why they're called the Laboratories when it's not just the chemists and biologists -- all those who work in sciences you can touch and handle -- but also the physicists and other theorists -- those who work in untouchable sciences -- who work there.

"Yes, I'm sure about the calamari," Hollis tells the waiter. "It's one of my favorite dishes." He doesn't need to provide the subtext: I come here often.

"Just checkin'," she says in that soft, familiar drawl, and Hollis is thinking about the South once more, his corner of the Outlands.

Liam sees his friend's eyes go cloudy and unfocused, and he inquires, "Hollis . . . ?"

Hollis makes no answer, but his eyes clear for a moment and focus on Liam.

Hollis is not sitting with his friend on a companionable evening out in this year 196 of the reign of the Most Honourable Sovereigns Maximum and Fang. He's in the spring of 186, ten years ago in a warmer season . . . and he has returned to his beloved Southern Outlands with wonderful news.

In this spring, the trees are in bloom on Hollis' estate, and he would pause to admire them, wander beneath their branches, were he not returning with glorious news.

Hollis has spent this past week in town, as he spends one of every six weeks in his comfortable semi - retirement. Just yesterday, the post came -- with a letter in the Queen's own hand beckoning him to the Capital for a post in the Laboratories.

Hollis has been working -- feverishly working -- on some new discoveries of his for some time now, and had posted a report of his to the Laboratories for review earlier, when the weather was still winter - chilly. This report details one of his new accomplishments, and he's pleased that he has now been granted a post at the Laboratories, so that he can continue his work. It is important work, hardly controversial in Hollis' opinion, and yet there is, he recalls, someone else also working on the same thing. He cannot recall the name, and yet . . . he's sure that this man is wildly jealous of his swift work. Perhaps jealous enough to kill.

Hollis had taken an omnibus from the post office to the edge of town, where he retrieved his horse from the stables. He has ridden feverishly to get here, and abandoned his horse at the gates (with fervent apology), and now he's running to the house to tell his family the good -- the wonderful -- news.

Hollis has two daughters, one almost five and the other seven. Their names are Clarissa Anne and Marie Stephanie. Clarissa is very fair, with her mother's blond hair and her father's grey eyes. Marie is darker, with her father's hair and dark green eyes. Hollis favors Marie, his eldest, for she's shy and quiet, like he is. Their mother is Louisa (her maiden name Schumacher), and she's as fair as her youngest daughter, with clear brown eyes like autumn leaves.

Hollis knows that when he comes through the front door with this wonderful news, Clarissa will be confused but happy at the prospect at living in the city, which she conceives of as a magical place full of wonder and happiness. Marie will be pleased superficially, but she does not favor change like her younger sister and will remain unhappy until she adjusts to this news and to their new home in the city. And Louisa will be tiredly happy, for when her daughters are happy, she's happy.

Hollis finally clatters onto the porch, and takes off his boots in a hurry. He leaves them by the door, outside, and rushes in through the door, which is unlocked. It should not be unlocked, but Hollis will not notice this until he looks back on this -- which he will do, at leisure, in his dreams.

Hollis calls out. "Louisa! I have wonderful news!"

He expects Louisa to respond, but there is no sound.

Hollis listens, and he realizes that the house is far, far too quiet. He expects to hear Marie sitting on the couch and reading while some music plays quietly, to hear Clarissa ineptly playing scales and waltzes on the piano while Louisa's skirts rustle in the kitchen. None of these sounds are here.

"Louisa?" Hollis asks uncertainly. "Clarissa? Marie . . . " His daughter's name dies away on his lips. None of them answer.

Hollis walks further down the hall, and looks into the kitchen. Louisa is not there.

Hollis is beginning to panic; he can feel the blood beating faster through his veins. He walks up the stairs and goes into Clarissa's bedroom first.

The first thing he thinks is paint. Red paint, carelessly splattered on the walls. Clarissa is lying on her bed, but she's too old to be put to bed in the afternoon.

And then he sees the red on her neck, like a smile set too low, and he remembers that her dress was new. It is a pretty blue dress, and Clarissa likes it very much.

Hollis leaves her room, in a daze, and goes next to his and Louisa's room. Again, she lies so peacefully on the bed, and he will not see until it is dark that her smile has gone too far down, and sits upon her neck.

He does not go into Marie's bedroom, for he knows what he will find. He rushes down the stairs and out the front door again.

But he doesn't. Somewhere, he stops in the kitchen, where there is a note on the simple table by the window.

"I have been merciful," it says.

Hollis . . . now Hollis is on his horse again, and he has dropped the letter, and he's riding into town, to get away from whatever is here.

Hollis feels something burning on his wrist, and it is like that terrible inner eye, the one that is seeing his family dead again, is closing.

Hollis makes a low yelping sound and pulls his wrist away from the burning; he hears a clatter and feels his hand bang against something. He opens his eyes, and still there is nothing. For a burning moment, he thinks this is it, now I'm blind for ever.

And then Liam's voice is there. "You in there, Hollis?" he asks. Classic Liam, carefree (for the most part) and caring at once.

"I think so." says Hollis.

"Y' think so?" says Liam. "Aren't you sure?" Liam pauses, looking at something, Hollis presumes. "Look, open your eyes. Our waiter's here with your calamari."

Liam puts a little emphasis on "calamari", and Hollis opens his eyes.

The waiter is indeed there, carrying their food, and Hollis takes his calamari gratefully, because the smell of cooked squid may not clear it from his mind, but it dims the images of his dead wife and daughters. And dim is something Hollis can live with. He does it almost every day.

"Ah, fish and chips," says Liam, gazing at the dish before him. "One of my favorite meals." He examines the plate, and picks up one of the eponymous chips. "Look, they even make the chips right."

"Of course they do," says Hollis. "This is my favorite restaurant, remember? I eat here often."

"Well, I don't," says Liam, for a moment dipping into his faux - Southern drawl and producing a truly awful result.

"I do," says Hollis. "And don't even try to imitate me. I don't like it." From Hollis, this is the closest thing anyone can get to a threat -- he's too mild - mannered to go further with his words. With a weapon in hand, he will, of course, go much further.

They eat in silence, Hollis trying to keep his mind on what season it is and failing.

"It's autumn, isn't it?" he asks Liam.

"Yes," says Liam in return. "Leaves are turning right pretty. How're they at your house?"

"I've hardly seen them," says Hollis. He hasn't. When he isn't literally blind, he's often lost within his mind, often to his work but sometimes, and unpleasantly, to his dead wife and daughters.

He has remarried since, to his Evie, but they are not truly married. Evie retains her maiden name, and they sleep in different rooms (Hollis usually in his study on the couch). They are merely close friends who have married for convenience -- for without him to claim as husband, she's merely a lady (bad) octoroon (worse) who works at the Laboratories. With him to claim as her husband, she's the second wife of a Southern chemist of respectable background, which makes her respectable as well.

And so the voices which haunt him are those of his Louisa, calling him to wake to the Southern sunlight, and that of Marie, who is asking him how his work is going. And sweet Clarissa speaks to him too, in her sweet young - girl's voice.

Sometimes Hollis cannot sleep.

"And for dessert?" asks the waiter, who has returned at some point.

Hollis wants to ask for grasshopper pie, but he's too far from home.

Instead, he bids Liam a companionable good - bye, and he goes home by omnibus, and he goes to bed early, curling up on the couch in his study.

And for once, he dreams no unpleasant dreams, only restless ones.


	11. Chapter Five, part I

Chapter Five : A Fallacy In Your Head

Meanwhile, while Liam was hunting through his archives (and writing his note to himself) and while Hollis was lying him an alibi (and eating dinner), what was Molly doing? This:

Molly went home from church on the omnibus with Stephanie, and after a while there came Sunday dinner -- they never had lunch on Sundays, said Stephanie -- which had chicken, prepared with a curious breading.

"It's fried," said Stephanie at dinner.

With the chicken came familiar green beans, which had been grown in Miss Margaret's garden, and potatoes which had been cleverly mashed up. Molly thought this unique and innovative, as she had only ever had baked potatoes before, and not many of those.

The potatoes were even buttered, which was not new to Molly, but it was special. Butter had been strictly for holidays and sometimes for Miss Tanith's birthday, or occasionally Sundays. There had been cows, Molly remembered, but mostly the milk had been sold for a little extra money on the side.

Miss Tanith was a wealthy lady, it may be accurately said. She lived off of her family's fortune for the most part, and took in some seamstressing work on the side for, as with the milk from the cows, some little extra money. Miss Tanith would almost surely die childless, she had said, but she wanted her heir -- and who was her heir, she had never said -- to be able to live in the same freedom as she.

Certainly, Miss Tanith's heir, whomever it might be, would find himself in a comfortable life, whether he had to work or not. The house was well - kept by Miss Tanith's Margaret, who, though she was aging, kept the house very well, and had been with Miss Tanith all of her (Margaret's) life, having come to the house at seven and stayed there all through her life. The grounds were handsome, and the house sat on the edge of a beautiful plain claimed by the county as public property, but which was never used. On this plain the long grass native to the prairie grew wild and long -- if necessary, it would provide fine hay to whatever master should come to the house. And the house itself had a beautiful name -- Twelve Oaks, after some house of long ago. Miss Tanith's great-grandfather had planted those eponymous oaks long ago, and they had grown into tall, lovely trees which swayed over the house and shaded the land around it in lacy shadow. Miss Tanith herself (and her mother before her, and her grandmother before her) had kept roses in a back garden, for pleasure, never for money. Molly was sure that the day those roses were sold would be the day Miss Tanith died -- or the day Twelve Oaks itself went to some other owner. This was in itself unthinkable -- Twelve Oaks had been in Miss Tanith's family before the oaks were even dreamed of, before it had been called Twelve Oaks, even. The house and the family went together, hand in hand, inseparable.

Yet Molly was sure, in a sinking way deep in her heart, that she would not return to Twelve Oaks, and that she would never gather another image of the oaks standing sleepily in summer, nor another of the grass on the plain rippling before the wind of spring, nor another of that grass standing auburn and dry before the dancing autumn leaves. She was sure that the paltry few images she had gathered in her three years' term at Twelve Oaks would be all she ever possessed of that wonderful house. She didn't know why, but she was sure of it -- and ah, Reader, she was right!

Before she had come to Twelve Oaks, Molly had spent her brief childhood in a shabby hut with her mother and father, in the town just south of Twelve Oaks itself. (Annabelle had once joked that this town was called Jonesboro, and when Molly had made no move to ask why, but simply accepted it, Annabelle had had to explain to the younger girl -- who had been eight at the time, still new at Twelve Oaks -- that this was a joke from an old book.) Her mother she remembered vaguely, and her father with equal vagueness -- they were shadowy, kind figures in the background of her childhood on those plains. She was certain, though, that she had had a sister or a brother -- perhaps both -- because these had been born just a week before she left for Twelve Oaks, having been promised to Miss Tanith at her birth.

Molly had been groomed, one could say, for servitude at Twelve Oaks. Yet she had still had a childhood full of games and childish play. It was a childhood balanced between fun and work, teaching and play -- the perfect childhood, some might say. Molly hardly remembered it.

Instead, the major figure Molly would always remember from her childhood -- when she looked back on it as an adult, that is -- was Annabelle. Reader, allow me to provide a description.

Annabelle was of some indeterminate age -- surely an age greater than Molly's -- in her teens, and she had been like a mother to Molly. She had welcomed the new girl with open arms when Molly first arrived at Twelve Oaks, had taught her to sew (as Sarah had so praised her in), had comforted her when she cried. Annabelle would always be the first person Molly thought of when reminded of her mother, because she had been the closest thing Molly had had to the idolized figure of a mother -- or the closest thing Molly could remember.

But now, Molly had come into the city, and lost her certainty of returning to the country, to Twelve Oaks, and to Annabelle, and she was uncertain of almost everything around her in this strange, yet wonderful place.

"Does this house have a name?" she asked, picking at her potato skin. Molly had been taught to clear her plate -- by Annabelle, of course -- and was not sure whether it was done to eat a potato skin here. It had been a done thing at home, but, well, this was the city, and everything was so different. She examined the plates of the girls around her. Anna was resolutely nibbling on the bone of her fried chicken -- no potato skin in evidence. Stephanie was diligently working her way through her own potato, and so there was no evidence to be gained there for the eating of a potato skin.

"Yes, said Stephanie through a mouthful of potato. Anna whacked her on the arm. "Ouch!" Stephanie swallowed her mouthful and added, "You asked yesterday. Greenhame."

"Oh," said Molly in a small voice. She speared the potato skin with her fork and put it in her mouth. It was rather tough and not very tasty, but she supposed it was all right to eat it, being that the other girls were eating their potato skins.

After dinner, which they had eaten late that day, at eight o' clock, it was time for sleep. Molly went to bed, quietly.

She dreamed of snow and misery.

All around her, there was a thick crust of snow on the ground, so thick she did not know where the snow began and the earth ended below her feet. With every step she took, her feet, clad in what seemed to be shoes wrapped up in scraps of cloth, crashed through the skin of snow into the soft, powdery underneath.

It was very cold, and her nose felt as if it would simply snap off from it, as if it were a piece of carven ice attached to her face. Her feet were equally as cold, insensible limbs which seemed to belong to someone else entirely, for there was no sensation at all in her feet and they felt like blocks of stone which happened to be attached to the end of her legs.

There were trees in the distance, and also there was some terribly important reason that she was supposed to reach them, but she wasn't going to. Because the snow was reaching up for her, bringing her down into a freezing cold underworld . . .

And then Molly awoke, with daylight streaming onto her face and the blankets warm around her, and she knew that there would be no snow; at least, there would be no snow for a long time.


	12. Chapter Six, part I

Chapter Six : Dearly Beloved

Some pleasant days passed, full of sun and fading moon at night, and Molly grew to like this strange house, this Greenhame. She respected Sarah, the strange girl who came and sewed with her, and she had time to herself to wonder about all the little pocket oddities surrounding her, such as this:

Twelve Oaks had been named so by Miss Tanith's great-grandfather, who, well - read, had planted twelve great oaks around the house. Twelve Oaks was a fitting name for the house, then, it referring to those twelve oaks planted 'round it. But what did Greenhame mean? The house was not painted green, and Molly guessed that the "-hame" part meant something like clothing or clothed, and so that meant that the house, for its name to have made sense, would have had to be painted green -- to "wear" green. But it didn't "wear" green -- it was drab brick on the outside. This was the part that puzzled Molly. She asked Sarah about it.

"Well," said the older girl, sewing. "Hmm. I'd never thought much about it either. But a house has got to have a name, hasn't it? And so they chose a nice one for it -- Greenhame. Suggests green - ness, fertility. Nice name for a house, but it isn't fitting in the least. I suppose you'd have to ask Master Robert about that one. Stephanie told me something about his childhood home having been Greenhame."

"Oh, I see," said Molly, and continued patching the petticoat she was currently working on.

"Of course you do," said Sarah, "because you're clearly not blind." She paused in her sewing and looked over at Molly for a moment. "Trust me, I'd know. I lived with Master Hollis for a good while, and he -- well, I told you he's half - blind, didn't I?"

"You did," mumbled Molly, holding her needle with her teeth.

"Don't do that," said Sarah, returning to her sewing. "You'll get nasty cuts in your mouth. But yes, I told you he's half - blind. Sometimes he can see. Some days he cannot. It comes and goes, really."

Molly wondered how that could have happened, and asked Sarah so.

"Don't be so forward," said Sarah crossly, she having burnt herself rather badly on the steam - pipe a moment before. "Haven't I told you that? Forward - ness reflects badly on you and your household. Well, I suppose I ought to tell you anyway." She folded her hands and said flatly, "Some chemicals exploded in his face. He's lucky he didn't lose an eye."

Molly almost named her deity - of - choice in surprise, but restrained herself out of respect and fright of the older girl, who was, Reader, devoutly Catholic, as you recall. She instead cursed mildly and in a ladylike manner. Reader, you recall how your maiden aunts swear and curse when they are startled? Think upon that, for that was how Molly cursed.

"Don't swear," said Sarah curtly. "It was rather tragic, I'll admit, but he's well gotten over it and well accepted that he'll be blind someday. All of us would be, if we lived that long."

This was entirely true, Reader, as you well know -- old men and old ladies often go blind as they near death. However, Reader, keep it in your mind that Molly was but ten.

Molly kept her silence, which was a wise thing to do in this instance. There's no right way to talk of death.


	13. Chapter Six, part II

Meanwhile, Hollis is happily working away, never minding what Liam said to him this morning.

"You're going back to work?" Liam said incredulously. "Honestly, Hollis. You're too sick to go to work."

"No, I'm not," Hollis said, rather sullenly.

"Yes, you are," said Liam desperately.

"Well, I'm going to work anyway." said Hollis authoritatively.

"You are a nut," Liam said. "No, let me correct myself: you are a lunatic."

"My aunt, et cetera," Hollis replied cheerily.

"Don't, Hollis," pleaded Liam. "You ought to be in bed."

"No, I oughtn't," said Hollis. "I'm fine."

After he arrived home Sunday night, Hollis had felt rather poorly and had gone to bed early. On Monday morning he had felt a little worse, but had gone to work the same, stopping to see Liam on his way.

Liam had immediately noticed how pale and fragile his friend looked, his skin like wax and the whites of his eyes shot with blood. He had immediately suggested that Liam go back home and not come to work at all that day. Liam had taken some offense to this.

"You are not fine," Liam said, trying to persuade his friend. "You ought to be at home."

"I've got to come to work today," Hollis said persuasively. "I have some very important things I need to do. I cannot very well go home. And besides, Liam, I'm perfectly fine. You're too worried."

Liam doubted very much that Hollis was "perfectly fine", but he at last let his friend go on with a parting reply:

"Well, you'll be sent home, then. Someone will notice that you're ill."

Liam would like to tell himself that he's gotten the last word, and that Hollis will return home at lunchtime. He knows, however, that Hollis is peculiarly stubborn, and will certainly not go home until the day is over.

This troubles Liam, and so when he makes a run of some history books to the new man, he forgets entirely that he had had a note for the new man -- the Doktor -- and simply gathers up the histories and novels he has for the new man and goes.

Liam skates down the sidewalk and into the Laboratories, where he leaves his skates at the front door out of respect for the floors. He hurries down the corridor with the Doktor's books in his arms, and takes the corners to his office, where he almost runs into the Doktor himself, who is standing and looking through his file cabinet.

"Doktor!" he exclaims, partly in surprise. "I'm so sorry to have run into you. I've got your books."

The Doktor blinks and says, "No, no, it's all my fault. You've got that novel I asked for?"

Liam thinks momentarily, then hunts down the book the new man is speaking of and hands it to him, saying, "It's Doctor Zhivago, right?"

"Yes," says the Doktor, looking inscrutably at the solid - red cover. "Have you ever seen the movie?"

Liam is confused before he remembers the way that they ensure their few movies work -- they watch them through, him and Leslie. Liam is quite proud that they've obtained a copy of Doctor Zhivago.

"Yes, I have," says Liam. "It was lovely. One of my favorite films."

The Doktor sighs, his face inscrutable, and says, "I only wish I could have been born in a time when I could have seen it."

"The miracle of technology," says Liam, and hands the Doktor the rest of his books. "And how's your spoken English coming?"

"Wonderfully!" the Doktor says. "I lacked only in slang, anyway." He smiles, and suddenly Liam feels very assuming and small.

"Have you seen Liam today?" says Liam, trying to change the subject.

"Of course! he's standing right in front of me!" says the Doktor.

"I meant, have you seen Hollis?" says Liam, chagrined. "Today."

"I have," says the Doktor, setting his books down on his desk. "He doesn't look well."

"I tried to get him to go home," says Liam briefly, examining a piece of art upon the wall.

"He's far too pale," says the Doktor sharply, turning and gazing at a different piece of art. "His eyes are bloodshot. He ought to be at home."

"I told him that!" says Liam. "He's awfully stubborn, though."

"It's a good trait, but it's ruining his health," observes the Doktor.

"Well, just call if you need more books," says Liam, "and be sure to return those. Good - bye."

He leaves the Doktor's office.

Liam walks back out of the Laboratories, secretly pleased that no one asks him to get them books. Liam wanted to be a historian, not a librarian -- he prefers his own company and the company of the dead to the company of the living.

Instead, he's here, with a trunk novel he hasn't looked at in such a long time that he's forgotten the names of the characters, but also with friends he cannot leave. The characters were his friends as well, but he cannot leave his friends to live in their world.

Liam decides he'll get a start on it, and so, his note goes forgotten.


	14. Chapter Six, part III

Meanwhile, Hollis is not, in fact, fine, despite his vehement protestations to the accusations of his not being fine. He knows he has a fever, and he recalls that he's extraordinarily pale. However, he's certain that this is just another of his "spells", and he does not, in fact, have something he can pass on to others. If he weren't certain of this, he wouldn't be here at all. He'd be at home, as he knows he should be anyway but isn't. Hollis is determined to get a day's work in.

What Hollis does not know is that he is, in fact, sick. He ought to be at home in bed -- indeed, he's very close to simply collapsing on the floor. He remains ambulatory and conscious thanks only to an act of will. Hollis is a very determined man, when he wants to be.

Right now, he's sitting in his office, thinking. He cannot keep his mind on what he wants to be thinking about; his mind keeps wandering from topic to topic, like a sheep grazing on the moor. See what I mean, Reader?

Hollis is weighing his options. He can stay here the whole day and possibly not make it to his doorstep without collapsing. Or he can go home at lunch, admitting defeat to Liam, and be well.

Hollis doesn't want to go home -- he's rather too proud for that -- but he knows he should go home. He looks like death warmed over -- like death barely defrosted, really. He's too pale, and his eyes are bloodshot, and he has a fever.

Hollis should be at home.

He's got some kind of book in his hands, but he has no idea what it is. It's got a familiar rough cover, and he remembers that it smells pleasant.

Hollis still cannot remember what he's got in his hands, and suddenly there's a grey curtain settling over his office, as if someone's drawn a curtain on that act of his life. He thinks oh no, I'll wake up in the hospital.

But then again, he's just in his office, isn't he? Did he grey - out for a moment there? Yes, he did -- he's gone and dropped the book. Hollis leans over and picks up the book from the floor and now his eyesight goes -- it's surprisingly undramatic for such a dramatic event, one that means the end of his useful life. Just suddenly, there's nothing there anymore -- only darkness, a black velvet curtain whipped across the stage of his life.

Hollis remembers something he said to a girl he once knew:

"But you're not useless," his voice says to someone he cannot quite see on the edge of this memory. "You've still got hands, haven't you?"

Something else floats to the top of the pond of memory -- his coat. She sewed my coat, he thinks . . . a ha!

"Sarah!" he says in a dry whisper. He'll pay her a visit, he decides. Right now. He's going to go find her.

Never mind, Reader, that Hollis is blind and has no idea where she lives. Hollis is very much beyond worrying about those kinds of things. You could say he's delirious . . . because he is. There's no sense in his thinking any more.

Hollis stands up and gets his coat off the chair. He puts it on and walks toward the door of his office. He goes out the door and shuts the door behind him. To the outside eye, he merely looks like a very sick man who's had some sense talked into him and is going home.

He walks down the corridor and takes what he thinks is the right turn. He walks up to where the receptionist's desk should be and says loudly, "I need to find a girl called Sarah. She's a seamstress."


	15. Chapter Six, part IV

Remember, Reader, how I told you that Liam left the Laboratories? That was a lie. He never made it past the exit of the Doktor's office.

Because Hollis blundered into him.

Liam is thinking about his trunk novel when Hollis comes stumbling down the hall. Hollis stops about two feet from Liam and says loudly, "I need to find a girl called Sarah. She's a seamstress."

"Oh, God," Liam says under his breath. This is what he was afraid of -- that Hollis would wind up in a fever delirium.

"Hollis, stay right here," he instructs his friend. "I'll be back in a moment."

Hollis says loudly, "All right. She shouldn't be too hard to find."

Liam goes into the Doktor's office. "Doktor!" he says to get the other man's attention. "I need your help. Hollis is delirious."

"Oh dear," says the Doktor, standing up and following Liam into the hall. "I've had some practical training -- well, let's see."

"Hollis, come over here," Liam says sharply.

"You've found her," Hollis says gladly. "What's her address?"

Hollis walks towards Liam, and stumbles off something invisible on the way. Oh, this is bad, Liam thinks.

"Hold still," says the Doktor. "We are going to get you to the hospital."

"Don't need a hospital," Hollis says, rather raspily. "I need to find Sarah."

"Come on," says Liam. "Trust me."

Liam knows that this is the ace up his sleeve, proverbially -- Hollis trusts him to the death.

"All right," Hollis says grudgingly. He's sounding worse and worse by the moment.

Liam takes Hollis by the wrist -- he recognizes the blank look in his friend's eyes -- and leads him after Doktor X, who has set off confidently for the nearest telephone.

They take a turn where Hollis thinks there shouldn't be one, and he says :

"Where are we going?"

"We need to take you to the hospital, Hollis," the Doktor breaks in. "You're very sick."

"No, I'm not," Hollis says, all the words slurring together.

"Yes, you are," says Liam, firmly.

"I'm not!" says Hollis, and rips his wrist from Liam's grasp. He goes sprinting down the hall, and the Doktor says to Liam, picking up the telephone:

"Get him."

Liam pelts down the hall after his best friend, wondering how he can run so fast with his eyes closed.

Liam is catching up to Hollis when Hollis stops short suddenly; Liam almost runs into him, but instead, grabs him by the wrist again.

Down the hall, the Doktor is calling the hospital for an ambulance.

"Yes. The Laboratories. I'm Doctor . . . " he rattles off some impossibly Germanic - sounding name. "Thank you." He hangs up and says to Liam:

"They'll be here in a moment. Let's get him outside." The Doktor indicates "outside" with a jerk of his head.

Liam leads Hollis most of the way outside with nary a struggle, until they're almost out the doors, when Hollis goes limp and almost falls to the floor.

Liam makes a displeased noise, having suddenly taken Hollis' weight on one hand, and the Doktor turns back. "Shall I help you carry him?" he asks genteelly.

Liam nods. The Doktor lifts Hollis' legs off the floor, and Liam takes his other wrist.

Together, they carry him outside, hanging insensibly from their hands.

"Here," says the Doktor, indicating a bench with a toss of his head. "Lay him down. Gently."

They put him down, and Hollis starts to writhe on the bench. Liam moves to hold him down, but the Doktor stops him.

"Don't!" he says harshly.

"Clarissa!" says Hollis in his raspy, slurry new voice.

"What's going on?" says Liam, suddenly vulnerable now that his friend has fallen ill.

"He'll be fine," says the Doktor, reassuringly. "Look, there's the ambulance now."

The horse - drawn ambulance clops up to the side - walk, and the driver leaps out. His ears flick back in dismay.

"Oh, not again," he says, moving forward to take Hollis off their hands.

"His name is Hollis Downey," the Doktor informs him, handing him a slip of paper. "This is how you spell it -- I'm sorry, but English is not my first language."

Liam watches as the ambulance takes his friend away.

"Don't worry," says the Doktor, patting Liam carefully on the shoulder. "He'll be better."

Liam isn't exactly sure of this. He's only seen Hollis like this once before that he's ever admitted to Hollis -- and that was after the accident which caused his blindness. Hollis believes he was in hospital for only a day, but Liam has been part of the conspiracy that keeps this secret from him -- that he was actually there for almost a week, and delirious for the most part of it. Liam remembers Hollis' raving, and knows that Hollis would believe he's never told anyone but Evie about his daughters and wife. Liam knows, because they were one of the few subjects Hollis talked about while he was delirious.

He remembers Hollis talking about his Marie, and knows that she had her father's dark brown hair, and green eyes Hollis never knew the origin for -- Louisa had brown eyes, and he grey eyes. He remembers Clarissa as well -- five years old, fair as a summer day in the country -- from Hollis' ravings. And of course there was Louisa, with the blond hair she passed on to Clarissa, and the brown eyes Hollis spoke of with such love.

When Hollis was more lucid, he would talk cryptically of his life in the South, mentioning his house and family only occasionally. He had never told anyone about his family, he had said during one of those lucid periods, and intended never to. They were dead, and belonged in the past.

Marie would have been seventeen this year, Liam thinks, and Clarissa fifteen. They would have been beautiful young ladies. Yet they never got that chance, and because they were denied it by death, Hollis is half mad.

He is, really, Liam thinks. His friend maintains a very good veneer of sanity, but it's quite evident that under that veneer all he cares for is punishing the man who took his daughters and wife from him . . . and preferably, punishing the government that allowed this theft as well. Hollis is no more sane than the lunatics in the asylum in Liam's old home town.

All Hollis wants is his daughters returned to him. To listen to Marie talking about school, and to watch Clarissa play with her doll house or practice piano, and to see his Louisa smile again. He would do anything to be given that back. Anything at all.

Liam is the only one who knows this, for Hollis had no family who were willing to sit with him while he was ill that first time -- not even his distant aunt came to see him. Hollis is totally alone -- and Liam loves him.

Liam has experience with the out - dated labels of the twentieth century, and he would definitely label himself as heterosexual. All the carnal love he has felt -- which isn't much, as he was raised Catholic -- was for women and girls.

Yet he does love Hollis, in the way one loves any dear friend of one's.

That second time that Hollis was delirious was only a short while ago -- just two years ago. Liam cannot remember what happened that time -- but he does remember that he found Hollis lying in the front hall of his house, shivering from the cold.

It had been a bitterly cold winter that year, and when Liam looked back, he realized that he hadn't seen Hollis in days -- that he might have been laying in the chilly hall for days or longer.

Liam immediately took Hollis to the couch in his study, where, as he gradually warmed, Liam realized that Hollis was feverish -- although he's not sure of that, as Hollis always seems to have a high temperature.

He's sure, though, that Hollis was going through one of his mad phases -- because he's certain (although Hollis has never told a soul of the spells he suffers) that sometimes Hollis is far less sane than he appears in public. In fact, he's sometimes completely insane, and Liam knows it now that he has seen his friend in a state he would wish on no one.

"Visiting hours are this afternoon, I think," says the Doktor in his uncertain European accent.

Liam is still lost.

He has seen his friend suffer through agonizing memories of the hideous deaths of his wife and children -- things no man should have to bear twice -- and he knows that Hollis will never be "better", by any definition of "better". All he can do is act more normal, more sane, than he does -- which is easy, because right now, he's about as sane as the mythical aunt he has in an insane asylum. (The aunt never existed, Liam has discovered.)

"I think you should take a break," the Doktor says thickly, through a haze of accent. Liam realizes he's crying and wonders vaguely why.

"He's my friend, too, you know," says the Doktor rather viciously. "Oh, come and have some tea with me."

This is really quite strange, but Liam doesn't object. He's definitely in a tea mood.


	16. Chapter Six, part V

When we left Molly last, she was sewing with Sarah. Let's return, then, to Sarah, for Reader, I think she deserves more of a story.

Sarah was born here in the Capitol, and she has lived here all her life. She trusts the city, because it has treated her well during her brief years on the world.

Sarah grew up in a house in a formerly affluent neighborhood of the city. But neighborhoods change with time, and so when Sarah was born, the neighborhood had gone very far down - hill.

She was a lovely little girl, and this was none of the reason why Hollis took her in. Hollis has a curious inability to see the actual features of those he loves -- he fixates on their personality, rather. And in Sarah he saw qualities that he himself possessed -- a curious tenacity and a weird ability to fixate on work to the exclusion of all else.

And so, when she was eight, Sarah burned herself. She has never told anyone the truth. She didn't step into a cook - fire -- the fires are all enclosed at Hollis' home. She deliberately burnt herself -- she wanted to know what it felt like. She was startled when the burns were as bad as they turned out to be -- and she immediately began to construct a lie to protect herself from that dark half of herself. For all that Sarah knows, she did, in fact, step into a cook - fire. Never mind that her dress would have caught fire around her. She has totally convinced herself that this is the truth -- and has convinced everyone around her, though Hollis had his doubts.

It's thanks to this act -- and thanks to that dark half that she so fears -- that Sarah has become the seamstress she's now. Because Hollis was unafraid to help her, and, ineptly, for he's a chemist, not a builder, arranged a way for her to sew while she was healing. Because Hollis purchased the braces she's paying back now. Because he was like a father to her -- the only real father she ever had.

Sarah was there when Hollis had his accident, and his wife -- his Evie -- took care of her, because the house got so lonely with the both of them gone. (Sarah wishes that it were a done thing for women to work, because then she could tell this young girl Molly about Evie, who did so much good for her.) Evie taught Sarah how to be alone, how to face the silence around her with perhaps not courage, but at least an answer and a word to speak.

Sarah is content to be who she is, and yet at the same time she's terrified of what she is. She's sure that whatever you call a being like her -- one that burns itself because it is curious about burns -- is not "human" or even "alive". Sarah has never been sure of her humanity.

So she talks, and she prays, trying to cover up that other person, that raging other voice that threatens to drown her own voice out sometimes. Sarah is so much more than what she appears to be -- but she's so scared to admit it, even though she ought to.


	17. Chapter Six, parts VI, VII

Hollis has no idea where he is. He knows that it is jumping and rattling around, and so he concludes he's probably in the back of a carriage, going somewhere. Where? That's the question.

Then suddenly, the carriage fades away around him, and he now understands that the carriage was the illusion, and the truth is that he's coming home, and he has wonderful news . . .

Liam rubs his temples with tired fingers. He doesn't want any of this to be happening. True, his discovery was wonderful -- what was it again? -- but otherwise, this has been a horrible two days. Hollis is ill, and this time, Liam fears, he will not recover. His friend has always been ill, obsessively fixated on avenging his family and bringing them back to him.

And now, this. Hollis is caught in that part of his mind where he's always coming home from town and finding his family dead. Liam doesn't know if he can escape, because he's never been trapped this far inside before.

After the chemical accident, Liam remembers that Hollis was mostly there, but sometimes not there. And he was never this far gone, not even two years ago when he was so sick he knew Liam.

Liam decides that Hollis doesn't know him because he cannot see him. Another of Hollis' spells of blindness has arrived, at exactly the wrong time. While he's normally totally innocuous, Hollis, blind and delusional, is very dangerous. He has no idea who it is that he's hurting -- it might be the man who killed his children, or it might be Liam.

Liam wonders if Hollis was carrying any weapons. If he were to awake in the ambulance . . .

No. Liam pushes that thought out of his mind. He doesn't need to be thinking about this. Hollis will be fine.

He has his doubts, he allows, but Hollis will be fine. He has always gotten better after his attacks. Hasn't he?

"You're not drinking your tea," the Doktor says, breaking in on Liam's thoughts.

Liam snaps, "I know." and returns to his thoughts.

Liam met Hollis entirely by accident. He had wanted to see if the new fellow at the Laboratories -- and Hollis had stayed "the new fellow" until the Doktor had shown up -- needed any library books. Instead, he walked in just as Hollis' experiment exploded in his face. One moment Liam was asking if he needed any books, the next he was out in the corridor looking for someone, anyone, who could help.

Liam does not handle crisis well. Is that crises or crisis? Whichever, he decides.

"You really should drink it before it goes cold," advises the Doktor smugly, sipping his own tea.

"Fine," says Liam, irritated, and grudgingly sips his tea. He'd like to forget this whole deal with Hollis and get back to the library -- the nineteenth - century fiction is looking a bit shabby.

* * *

Molly is sewing in silence with Sarah when Sarah looks up at some sudden noise.

"What is that?" Sarah asks.

Then Molly hears it as well, and Sarah says:

"Oh, no."

Molly looks fearfully to the older girl, and Sarah says dully :

"Miz Margaret's died."

Oh, no indeed. Perhaps Molly will get to go home.

They sew on in silence until Stephanie comes in, her eyes red with tears.

"We are to go to the market," she says, and Sarah shoots Stephanie a look.

"Yes, I know Molly's never been before," Stephanie whispers tensely to Sarah while Molly pretends not to listen. "Miz Tanith told me to fetch you two ; we are all of us going. She says we have to."

Molly leaves her sewing behind her and follows the two older girls -- Sarah and Stephanie -- down the servants' stairs and into the carriage - yard out back, where a silent group of the other servants are standing. Anna, ever the sentimentalist, has her handkerchief out and is weeping into it.

"Come on, let's go," says Sarah in a rough voice, and Molly realizes that she's angry to be grouped with the house servants, as she's a freed - woman.

They follow Sarah solemnly down the alley in back of the house to the street behind.


	18. Chapter Six, part VIII

Let us skip ahead some time, Reader. We'll be back to them, I promise you.

Liam is visiting Hollis. At least, he's trying to.

He has the number to his hospital room, and he's found the room (with the kind help of one of the nurses). What he hasn't found is his friend, who is supposed to be in bed, asleep.

Liam is pacing around the room and looking out into the hall, nervously and beginning to panic.

Where is Hollis? he wonders. He should be right here, asleep and peaceful.

Maybe they've taken him away, says a spectral voice. He might be dead. Or they might have taken him to have surgery.

Liam tries to ignore the voice, but here it goes again.

Check the morgue, the voice says.

Liam shuts the voice out, thinking about his library, visualizing it so powerfully he might as well be there. There's nineteenth - century fiction, with all the shabby paperback reprints from the twentieth and twenty - first century, standing beside the beautiful, lovely, and worn original volumes which can't be touched without gloves. Then there's twentieth - century fiction, full of plain hardback volumes, intermingling with fragile paperbacks that even Liam barely dares to handle. And at last, the slim shelf of twenty - first century fiction, with slick plastic - bound books dominating until the mid - century revival of books bound to last -- Liam recalls that this was a backlash against the risingly popular electronic books, and turned into the thriving publishing industry of today, which uses the same technology that was used to print the Declaration of Independence in copies, and Gutenberg's Bible, and Luther's Ninety - Five Theses, and . . . all those lovely old books.

Liam is very proud of his library -- they have an original Gutenberg Bible, and even an original copy of the Ninety - Five Theses . . . not to mention the Declaration of Independence.

But then he remembers -- if that book is right, then everything in those wonderful old documents is wrong, wrong, wrong -- their words about humans and mutants are falsified, centuries after the fact, to provide a false history.

Liam pushes that thought away as well, and now visualizes his house, picturing the front hall in perfect detail.

"Hey, beautiful," a soft, vaguely Southern voice purrs. "You look . . . lonely." A cool hand strokes Liam's cheek. "Mind if I keep you company?"

Liam opens his eyes suddenly, shocked. Well, there's Hollis. His ears are twitching in a way Liam has never seen anyone's ears twitch, and then he almost grasps what's going on -- but he pushes that thought away. Liam does not want to know.

Hollis cups Liam's chin in one hand, and keenly observes his features.

"Did anyone ever tell you you were beautiful, Liam?" he asks, and leans in to kiss Liam.

Liam feels like he's been released from some kind of spell, and struggles away from the man he could have sworn was his friend just this morning.

"Stop, Hollis," he says in his best angry - librarian voice. Liam has practiced this one on a few patrons who refused to leave when he asked them to, and he knows it should work.

So why does Hollis kiss him anyway?

It's a chaste kiss, on the cheek, not the lips, but Liam still feels threatened and frightened by it. This is not his friend. This is someone else -- someone dangerous.

"I'm going to call a nurse," he says calmly, in the voice he uses when someone has damaged a book. Liam steps away from Hollis and towards the open door.

"No, you're not," Hollis hisses. He glances at the door, and it shuts itself -- softly, even, because a slam would bring attention to them, and Hollis doesn't want attention. Liam is genuinely frightened of his friend now -- he has never seen Hollis angry, only mildly displeased -- and he has good reason to be.

"You're going to stay right here," says Hollis. "With me."

He grabs Liam by the shoulders and pins him against the wall. Liam is trying to run, and he thinks dazedly that just this morning, this man who has him pinned against the wall couldn't even tell fantasy from reality, and was arguing light - heartedly with him about whether he should go home.

A long time ago, Liam constructed a memory palace for himself, after he read about the subject in a book. To him, it is as perfectly real as any place in the "real" world, or more real. It is an amalgam of his library and the house he grew up in, an old mansion which always seemed to be full of dark corners.

Liam closes his eyes as Hollis runs his cold hand down Liam's cheek again, and tries to get himself there. It's so simple for him to do, and yet --

(Hollis kisses Liam, one arm crooked around him.)

-- yet it takes Liam more than a moment to get there. Once he's there, though, he's all there, and he doesn't have to be in the "real" world any more. He opens the door into the comfortable house he built for himself as a teenager, and breathes in the calming scent of tea, mingled with old books and the faint scent of flowers. It's spring in his memory palace now, and Liam decides he will go out back to the flower gardens.

("Is that better?" Hollis asks in his soft Southern accent. "But oh honey, you still look so lonely. Let me help you with that.")

He walks down the main hall to the door at the back of the house which leads out into the gardens. He pauses at the threshold, vaguely sensing something in the "real" world, but ignores it and goes on, out the door. The flowers are in bloom, bright dots of color in Liam's vision.

(Hollis is unbuttoning Liam's shirt with his delicate, cold hands.)

Liam decides, for no particular reason, to turn back. He's been meaning to catch up on his reading, but hasn't had a chance to yet. He walks back down the main hall and goes through the doorway into the library. As always, it smells pleasantly of old glue and ink -- the smell of old books -- and the light is wonderfully dim, just as he likes it. The fire flickers pleasantly, and Liam decides that he's not going to leave the library for a while. He's got so much to catch up on, after all -- and then some part of the "real" world outside pushes inward on his awareness. He shoves it away. Liam wants to be alone right now. He hates to have company while he reads.

(Their clothes are neatly folded on the visitors' chair, and Hollis is gazing at Liam with lustful, shy eyes. "Shall we continue?" he asks, the soft accent blurring the edges of his words. And oh yes, Liam wants to continue.)

Liam browses through the stacks until he finds a book he has read many times before. Never mind catching up on his reading -- he'll just re - read. Again. He supposes that some day he'll have to actually catch up on his reading, but right now he is content to reread the familiar. He believes he'd gladly reread his treasured collection of Sherlock Holmes -- it's not yet the right time of year for Dracula, and he just doesn't have the stamina today for Frankenstein, and The Catcher in the Rye is definitely out of the question. He's just not in the mood. So Sherlock Holmes it is, and Liam retrieves the volume from its place on the shelf. He walks over to the couch before the fire and sits down.

(Liam watches Hollis' hands. He has beautiful hands.)

Liam opens the book, careful as always of the spine, which is rather delicate in this book. He cradles it in his lap as he leans back into the couch, enjoying the warmth of the fire on his skin and the dancing light it casts on the walls. Liam likes to prepare before he reads, and this sitting before the fire is part of it. A cup of black tea is another part. Liam concentrates and imagines a cup of tea, black English tea, with a little bit of honey added to it, in his favorite china mug.

(Hollis has Liam pressed against the bed, limply, and he asks softly, intimately, "Do you think I'm so sick now?" A smile blooms on his lips.)

The mug of tea appears in his hand, and Liam sets it down on the coffee table while opening to a story he knows well -- 'The Adventure of the Dying Detective'. This story was one of his first encounters with the eminent detective, and he treasures it for that reason, just as he treasures the volume it resides in -- printed fifty - one years before the beginning of the current reign, it's older than his great - great - grandfather. In fact, it was a keepsake of his great - great - great grandfather, who gave it to his son, who gave it to his son, who gave it to his son, who gave it to his son, who gave it also to his son, who was Liam. He first came across the volume in his grandfather's library, and received it as a present from his father after his grandfather had passed away. It is one of the few volumes from that time, two and a half centuries before, to survive without requiring restoration. It's in perfect condition, through some caprice of God or fate, though somewhat fragile. He handles it with the careful skill that has resulted from his years of work in the library -- or perhaps that careful skill developed from the care for books his father taught him, using this book as an example. You could even trace his decision to be a historian to this book, for when he at last finished all the stories in the volume, he wanted to know more about the time period -- but neither his father nor his grandfather could tell him more about it. His teachers at school knew only a little about the subject as well, and so Liam threw himself into his studies, hoping to discover as much as he could about the Victorian age.

(Hollis nuzzles against Liam, sleepy. "Good - bye," he says. "I have to leave now." The words are eerie and disjointed, but still warm and loving.)

Liam sips from his tea and begins to read. He loves this story, and occasionally took Holmes' hints on malingering -- but never passed them on to his friends. Liam would never do that. For one thing, he didn't have any real friends when you could get a good break for malingering. And for the second, he only used it once -- when he had to attend his grandfather's funeral. That was how he got out of school that day . . . faked sick and ran home to change into his best clothes and go to the funeral.

(Liam buttons his shirt, running on autopilot.)

Liam sets his mug of tea on the table. Someone's knocking at the door. He gets up, walks out of the library, and goes to the front door. There's no peep - hole through which he could see who's knocking, so he just opens it anyway. It's himself.

Rather unceremoniously, Liam is dumped back into the real world, and he finds himself sitting in the visitors' chair, feeling about as still and calm as a typhoon.

The door seems to unlock itself and someone steps in. The blurry afterimage of the roaring fire is still greenly imprinted on Liam's eyes, so he doesn't see anything until whoever's standing there raises an eyebrow in polite question.

Liam intends to say, "Oh, I was just visiting," but what falls out of his mouth is more like : "Oh - I - visit - vi - oh . . ."

"It's all right," someone says in a comforting voice. "Want me to call a taxi for you?"

Liam nods and tries to thank his rescuer. Instead, he founds himself being gingerly embraced.

"How about I take you to lunch?" his rescuer asks as they walk down the hall.

"S - suh - so - sounds w - wuh - wonderful," Liam stutters.

"Don't worry about it," says his rescuer. "I'm not going to ask any awkward questions."

They walk through the hospital to the front doors, and Liam clings to his rescuer. He does not want to be abandoned.

"D' you mind if we take my carriage instead?" asks his rescuer. "I seem to've left my wallet at home."

Liam doesn't even try to answer, just follows his rescuer out the hospital doors into the relatively warm noontime sun. They make a left turn and there's a carriage standing at the curb. His rescuer waits for Liam to get in before entering as well.

"The name's Ashley," he says, extending a hand for Liam to shake. Liam shakes it. "I'm an experimental physicist at the Laboratories."

"Reference -- librarian," Liam stutters.

"Oh, I see," says his rescuer -- Ashley. "Hmm. I've seen you before. You're the guy who runs books for us?"

"Yes," says Liam, his voice unsteady. He looks up at his rescuer. It's an unusual sight.

The first thing he notices is the pale skin, so pale that Liam's friend the biologist would definitely inquire about Ashley having any feelings of faintness or sensitivity to sun -- he looks like an anemic albino. His eyes -- or eye, anyway -- are pale grey, almost silvery in color. His hair is much the same color, very pale grey with a silvery sheen. Definitely albino, Liam decides from the weight of the two years of biology he took in high school.

"It's okay to stare," his rescuer says. "I look rather strange, I know." He lifts aside the fringe of hair covering his right eye. "So get the full picture now."

Ashley's right eye is fake -- very much so. It's a well - done prosthetic, and the iris is pale blue in color. However, the prosthetic is much larger than the other, natural eye, and so it doesn't seem to quite fit in the eye socket.

Ashley lets the fringe drop, covering his right eye again, and adjusts his glasses. He's dressed unusually as well, in white down to the shoes, with what appear to be ruby earrings, one per ear.

Liam ducks his head and stares at his shoes.

"You're fine," says his rescuer. "Hmm -- do you know that new geneticist fellow?"

"Yes," says Liam. "I visited with him just this morning."

"Good," says Ashley. "I'm going to leave you with him, then -- I have some business of my own to attend to, I'm afraid."

The carriage comes to a stop in front of the Laboratories, and Ashley steps out, with Liam following after.

"You know where he works, right?" Ashley asks.

Liam nods.

Ashley nods as well, then looks at Liam keenly. "You look cold," he says, and then shrugs off his long overcoat and puts it around Liam's shoulders. Liam is surprised when it fits almost perfectly. "There you go. Remember -- lunch. Tomorrow all right?"

Liam nods, hugging the coat around him. He was cold, in fact -- how did Ashley know that? "Yes. Thank you." he whispers.

"No problem," says Ashley. "You know where to find me."


	19. Chapter Seven, parts I, II

Chapter Seven : A Seven Per Cent Probability

Molly is sitting on a bench with the sullen Sarah, who has been chosen by the other girls to stay with the younger girl while Anna and Stephanie gossip with their friends. Sarah is not pleased with this situation, and is busily sewing some kind of pattern into a small piece of fabric.

Molly, meanwhile, is fascinated by the life around her.

There are, of course, no familiar faces, and no familiar voices, but she recognizes the talk -- it's gossip, which Molly is very familiar with. She's been around it all her life, after all.

She edges to the end of the bench, away from Sarah, who has a serious, worried look on her face as she sews. Two girls are standing about seven feet away, discussing a recent death.

" . . . oh yes, he killed her. Shame, really."

"Poison?"

"Yes, I heard."

* * *

Liam walks down the familiar halls and finds the Doktor's office. Then he realizes he shouldn't be here, turns around, and goes to the library.

Once he's inside, he hugs the coat tighter around himself and hurries to his office, where he shuts the door. He takes off the coat and hangs it up on the coat rack.

Then he sits down at his desk, intending to write himself a note so he'll remember to give Ashley's coat back, and falls promptly asleep, waking only when Leslie shakes him to tell him she's going home.

"Hey, wake up!" she says impatiently.

"Hmm . . . ?" he says drowsily.

"I'm leaving," she says. "Good - bye."

"Oh, good - bye," he says out of routine, and falls right back asleep.

The following morning, he wakes up disoriented and sore from sleeping in the chair. It's not as cold as it ought to be, though, and Liam's grateful for that. He'd rather be overheating than freezing.

He gets out of the chair and stretches, then follows by cracking his knuckles. His mouth tastes awful, his clothes are ruffled, and his hair is probably a mess. Liam really ought to stop sleeping at work.

Nevertheless, he'll have to go home at some point today. Should it be right now so he can brush his hair, brush his teeth, and put on new clothes? Or should it be later, and he'll just try to look put - together right now?

Liam decides on the latter choice, being Liam and not exactly fixed on being clean. Besides, he doesn't have that many books to deliver today -- he glances at the bulletin board on the wall to check -- and so the only people who'll see him will be Leslie and the other reference librarian.

Liam leaves his office, figuring that he might as well get some coffee this morning. On the way to whatever you call the place where they keep the coffee, he neatens his signature ponytail, taking it out, running his fingers through his hair, and then re - doing it. That's the good thing about long hair -- it almost never sticks up weirdly after sleeping. Liam has been this glad he grew his hair out before, but he is glad that he grew it out now.

Leslie is in the place where they keep the coffee when Liam walks in, and she says, amiably enough for it being eight o' clock in the morning:

"Good morning."

"I just woke up," says Liam groggily. "Who says that's good?"

"Not a morning person, are you?" says Leslie sweetly.

"Not this morning," Liam says with all the wittiness he can muster ten minutes after he's woken up.

"Have some coffee," Leslie suggests.

"I second that," mumbles Liam.

After he gets himself coffee, he leans against the wall, sipping it. He is very much tempted to just finish his coffee and leave, but Liam reminds himself that . . . that guy in physics . . . really needs his books today. This is his motivation to finish his coffee and go back to his office, where he finds the list of books that guy in physics needs.

Karlein. That's his name; Joachim Karlein. Liam remembers him now -- Hollis introduced them once. He's a nice person, although somewhat prone to wandering off into work - related tangents. Most of the people at the Laboratories do that as well.

Liam must have collected Joachim's books at some point yesterday, because they're neatly stacked in a pyramidal shape. Liam takes the books (but not the list ; he doesn't need it any more) and goes to find Joachim.

After he, with the help of the receptionist, assures himself of the location of the physics department, Liam goes to deliver Joachim's books. It's not like he's hard to find, exactly ; Joachim has a full head of blazingly red hair.

"Here are your books," says Liam after introducing himself. "Where should I put them?"

"Over there," says Joachim, distracted. "On the desk."

Liam gingerly sets the books down on a clear (er) part of Joachim's messy desk. "There you go," he says.

"Thank you," mumbles Joachim, pouring through pages of nearly illegible notes. "That bastard Simpson is finally going to get his comeuppance -- " he says as Liam is leaving, and Liam smiles. He's never heard anyone use the word "comeuppance" seriously aloud. He's read it a few times, but never heard it spoken in seriousness.

Because it's a cold morning, Liam is wearing Ashley's coat, and so, when someone grabs him by the shoulder, he assumes that someone's mistaken him for Ashley and starts to say that he's just a reference librarian and doesn't even work in physics.

"There you are!" says Ashley to a very confused Liam. "I've been looking for you all over. Tried the library, tried that new geneticist ; I was considering trying your house, but then I found you."

Liam gives Ashley a moment to catch his breath.

"It's Hollis," he says breathlessly. "He's going to die."

Liam is surprised.

"They don't know what he's got, but they're pretty sure it's fatal," Ashley says tiredly. "I was just there half an hour ago."

"Oh my," says Liam.

"I know, I know, you don't trust me," says Ashley wearily. "Call them yourself if you want. It's true."

"Why would they contact me?" Liam says defensively.

"He doesn't have any blood family," Ashley says curtly.

"But -- Evelyn?" Liam says confusedly.

"They never actually married," says Ashley tensely. "It was an arrangement they made for convenience. You're the closest thing he has to family."

"They should have contacted Evelyn," Liam says. "Now, if you'll excuse me -- " he moves to get around Ashley " -- I have some books I need to get."

"No, you don't," says Ashley.

"Yes, I do," says Liam, fiercely. "It's what I do."

Ashley grabs Liam by the forearm and says in a soft, threatening voice:

"Listen. Do you really want to say your good - byes to a corpse? Go."

Ashley shoves Liam down the hall, and before Liam can storm back and do something regrettable, Ashley walks calmly down the hall, saying to Liam as he goes :

"I've already called a cab for you ; he's waiting out front."

With that, Liam stands, shocked, for a moment, before deciding that he might as well go visit Hollis.


	20. Chapter Seven, parts III, IV

When Liam arrives at the hospital, he is not surprised at all when, after having signed in, he is escorted to Hollis' room. He is, after all, listed as "next - of - kin" on Hollis' will . . . although how Liam came to be listed there is a story for another time.

Hollis does not look well at all. He looked horrible the day before -- now, he looks awful. He's dreadfully pale and doesn't seem to be breathing.

Liam wonders if he really is saying goodbye to a corpse, and then Hollis' eyes open and he says something in a raspy, low voice.

"Hello to you too," says Liam, guessing at what Hollis said.

Liam glances surreptitiously about the room ; there is no one there. This is déjà vu all over again . . . but this time, Hollis is dying.

Liam pulls up a chair and sits down. "Hollis," he says in a whisper. "I have wonderful news."

"Well . . . I'm . . . dying . . . " rasps Hollis. "So . . . hurry . . . "

"I've found a book," says Liam, hurriedly. "It's . . . oh, Hollis. There's too much to explain."

"Well . . . try . . ." says Hollis slowly.

"Hmm . . ." says Liam pensively. "Well, I found it in the stacks on Sunday. If it is what it seems to be -- an accurate fictional account of events occurring two hundred years ago -- then it would, to put it simply, rip society in half and burn the pieces."

"In . . . words . . . of . . . less . . . than . . . two . . . syllables . . ." says Hollis.

"I've got a book," says Liam shortly. "It says that everything we know about mutant history that happened before the current monarchs were crowned is a filthy lie." Liam chuckles. "If we'd had it two centuries ago, it would have provided much evidence in the Denver crimes trials."

Hollis says nothing, and his eyes close. Liam almost leaves, but then sees that his friend is smiling, and listens to what he says next:

"That. . . bastard . . . Simms . . . is . . . finally . . . going . . . to . . . get . . . what's . . . coming . . . to . . him." Hollis' eyelids crumple and he coughs delicately, keeping his mouth closed. He turns his head away from Liam and coughs more heavily. He takes a deep breath and begins.

"They don't know what's . . . wrong with me," he says, the words following immediately after each other with only one pause in the middle to take breath, unlike his earlier speech where he was pausing between every word to breathe. "It's my lungs. . . that's all they know."

Hollis again turns his head away from Liam and coughs heavily, then continues:

"Feels like my throat's full of . . . algae . . ." he says in a whispery voice. He turns his head back towards Liam and says:

"You'd better . . . leave . . ." he says slowly. "I've been told I . . . may not have many . . . lucid moments before I die." Hollis twitches his head towards the door. "Go . . . ahead . . ."

"All right," says Liam reluctantly. "Good - bye, then."

"Good - bye," says Hollis. "At . . . least . . . you . . . wanted . . . me . . . to . . . die . . . happy. . . . And . . . I . . . will. . . . Thank you. Good - bye. . . . Liam . . ."

Liam leaves the room, thinking he'll never see his friend again until his funeral (which will occur soon, undoubtedly). Liam is correct . . . but he's the one who will die, for by telling Hollis of his dangerous discovery, he's signed his own death warrant. Hollis may never remember being sick, or he may remember all of it -- the man who follows Liam silently down the corridor thinks it will be the first. So there's only one person to "take care of" . . . Liam.

* * *

Liam opens the door of his house and steps inside. He's still wearing Ashley's coat, but he vows to give it back at lunch. Whenever they have lunch . . . Liam thinks that tomorrow would be good, because he knows a wonderful restaurant near the Laboratories. Or they could visit Hollis' favorite restaurant -- as they're both friends of his -- and toast his memory. If he dies. If not, they'll toast his life.

Liam takes off his shoes and puts them -- neatly -- by the front door. Liam likes order, although, because he's hardly ever home, he doesn't see much of it. He hangs his coat on the hook behind the door and goes into the main room.

Liam shares a house with some other people. It's a boarding - house of sorts, one could say. All that matters to Liam, who is never home, is that it's a place to sleep and keep his things, which he likes to call his "gunna" after a word he found in a book once. He does not notice that he has left the door open (Liam is somewhat forgetful ; even he acknowledges it), and further does not notice when someone slips in behind him, "someone" being the man who followed him down the hospital corridor. Who, in fact, has tailed him all the way here. Stealthily.

The main room is essentially a parlor, what Liam calls a

living room, because no corpses have ever been laid out here -- well, not since this was a private house. Those who die in boarding - houses such as this are laid out for a viewing in the home of a friend.

Liam expects to see Maria Wong, one of his housemates, playing the piano or reading in a chair. But she's not there. Maria was a friend of his in school, and by fortuitous chance, they wound up in the same boarding - house.

Liam leaves the parlor / living room and goes to his own room, in the back of the first floor in the old servants' quarters. The light isn't on, and so he sighs, fiddling around in the dark until he finds a candle. He says aloud to himself:

"So how many armies does it take to change a lightbulb?"

He pauses and lights the candle, then continues:

"Five. The Germans start it, the French give up without trying, the Italians start, get nowhere, change sides, and try again, the Americans finish it and take all the credit, and then the Swiss who sit in the dark and pretend nothing's happened."

He laughs at his joke, almost blowing out the candle. He winces and sets it down on the side table. "Better be more careful," he says.

"I hate lightbulb jokes," says a voice, deadpan, from the door.

Liam turns around, thinking that the voice is somehow familiar. He can't quite place it, though.

All he can see in the doorway is a silhouette, lit from behind so that its face is obscured. This is not helped by the fact that the figure in the doorway has a hat pulled down low over its face. However, Liam does note that it's rather tall for a woman, with a distinctively male voice.

"You're wanted," says the figure, indicating the front door of the house with a nod of its head.

"I'll need my coat," says Liam.

"No, you'll be back very soon," insists the figure.

"Well . . . I'll get cold," says Liam rather foolishly. He has a bad feeling about all this.

"No, you won't," says the figure, patiently. "It's very warm outside. Come along. You won't need anything."

Liam considers. "Why?" he asks.

"Because you are wanted," says the figure. It steps forward, seizes Liam by the forearm, and bodily drags him to the front hall.

"Shoes," says the figure commandingly.

Liam puts them on.

He follows the figure, dazed, down the side - walk and into an unfamiliar carriage drawn by two black horses. Once he is in the carriage, someone puts a blindfold on him. He wonders why, but doesn't dare ask.

"Trust me," says a familiar voice that Liam can't quite place. "You won't need to see where you're going."

The carriage clatters slowly through the streets and comes to a stop. Liam is guided from the carriage and led through what seems like an endless maze of halls and passages until he again feels a breeze across his face.

"Take off the blindfold," says an aged, regal voice.

Someone does just that, and Liam can see again.

The speaker is an old man with white, thin hair that might once have been blond. He has blue eyes, surprisingly clear for someone so old.

"Can you see me?" he asks.

Liam nods, then shakily raises a hand, taps the outer corner of his eye, and gestures in the old man's direction.

"You've discovered something very dangerous, Liam," says the old man in a calm, soothing voice. "You should have kept it to yourself, shouldn't you?"

Liam nods again, unsure whether he should (or can) speak.

"You should have, that's right," the old man continues. "But you didn't, Liam."

Liam shakes his head.

"I'm afraid that you've committed treason, Liam," says the old man in a reasonable voice. "That's an offense punishable by death."

Liam nods slowly.

"If you have any last words," says the old man, "now is the time."

Liam considers for a moment before he says:

"I'd like to say that I love you, Hollis, for loving me first. Everyone else, I never gave a damn about any of you. So be it."


	21. Chapter Seven, parts V, VI

Hollis wakes up after some indeterminate time, and the first thing he does is look backwards, trying to remember what's been happening to him.

He remembers going to look for Sarah. Did he find her? He doesn't think so, because he remembers Liam's voice, telling him something -- he tries to recover what he said, but it slips away from him like water. He remembers it was very important.

That doesn't matter now, because someone is holding his hand. It's Evie.

"E . . . vie . . ." he says, the syllables bubbling over the mucus that crowds in his throat.

"I'm here," she says calmly.

He squeezes her hand.

"What's . . . happened . . . ?" he asks slowly.

"You were very ill," she says smoothly. "Liam brought you here after you fainted at work."

Hollis is impatient, and rasps, "I . . . know . . . that . . . part . . ."

"You've been delirious almost a week now," she says.

"What have I missed?" he says, and coughs heavily, feebly turning his head away from Evie.

The lights flicker for a moment, and so, with a literal shadow passing over her face, Evie says three words Hollis had hoped he'd never hear:

"Liam is dead."

" . . . how . . . ?" strangles Hollis, turning and coughing heavily, bringing up a clot of mucus which he spits onto the floor.

A tangle of sibilant s - sounds emerge from Evie's mouth before she solemnly makes a gesture any schoolchild would recognize. She puts the index and middle fingers of her right hand together, folds the ring and pinky finger down, puts the tips of her index and middle fingers to her temple, and mimes firing a gun.

Hollis closes his eyes and listens for the voice of his friend which, he believes, must still be resonating somewhere in his head.

Eventually, he finds him.

* * *

Evie watches Hollis for a moment. His eyes are tightly shut, as if he's concentrating on something, which he probably is.

The skin of his eyelids smoothes out, and Evie can just hear him whisper :

"Ave . . . atque . . . vale . . ."

These are not words that Evie knows the meaning of immediately ; they are the three words of Latin she can recognize, taught to her by Liam some years ago at a party.

She dredges their meaning up from the bottom of her memory. 'Hail and farewell'. Apt last words for Hollis or Liam . . . as a matter of fact, they appeared in Liam's suicide note when they found him.

Closing her own eyes, she remembers the text of it. She, after all, found it, lying on the table beside Liam's limp hand.

'My dearest friends,' the note read in Liam's most careful calligraphy, 'I am afraid the time has come for me to bid you all farewell, to leave this foolish exercise of life behind and see for myself what so many have seen before me. Give Evie my love. Tell Hollis good - bye, the will's in my coat pocket. Ave Atque Vale, Liam Hamilton.'

It's almost too short a text to put coda to her friend's life, and yet it had. He had written it just moments before he put gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

Evie had come looking for him just hours after his death, wanting to ensure that Hollis' only real friend knew that he was getting better (or seemed to be; that spell of lucidity had passed all too quickly, and Hollis had slipped rapidly into sleep). She had not been immediately horrified by the mess of brain, blood and skull behind Liam because her gaze had immediately fallen away from that to the note beside his hand. She had taken it from the table and read it over before dashing to the telephone in the main hall to call . . . someone. She didn't recall exactly who she had called, but she remembered telling the operator that she'd found a dead man. Evie had given the operator the address, and soon enough someone else had come . . .

And then there was the funeral, with everyone in solemn black and a dismal rain falling over everything. Ashley, ever the gentleman, had held an umbrella for Evie, quite willing to let himself get soaked to the bone -- he had said at the time that it would be quite fitting were he to join his friend in hospital. That would be three of their close - knit circle injured or dead, he had said rather nihilistically, before adding that he didn't want Evie to add a fourth to the circle of injured. He had said it in a way that made Evie feel proud of what she was -- a woman in what was largely still a man's field, and an octoroon to boot.

Evie rarely feels like that. In her years as a geneticist, she has learned to take advantage of what kindnesses she is offered, because she receives far more unkindnesses. She is a woman, which justifies some of the kindness she receives from her male colleagues (and will freely admit, sometimes basks in). And she is an octoroon, which she does not think justifies any of the unkindness she receives. These things balance each other out of late, although when she was first called to her work, she found herself occasionally in a rage at her male colleagues who presumed that, due to her possession of one more X chromosome than they, she was somehow inferior.

Except Ashley. She cannot remember ever having been enraged with Ashley . . . not even on the occasion when one of the other scientists called her an octoroon bitch in the laboratory. Ashley, she recalls, was even the one who restrained her from flinging a vial of acid at the man, and calmed her down with a cup of strong coffee and kind words.

At the time, Ashley had been a geneticist, but he had later switched to physics, claiming he hadn't the heart to muck with life. Evie missed him ; he was intelligent, witty, and good at whatever he did.


	22. Chapter Eight, part I

Chapter Eight : Broken Image

"Lorem ipsum!" shouts Hollis at high volume.

Evie sighs. She brought Hollis home just yesterday, as he had seemed to be entirely well, even able to hobble a few steps without help and speak without pausing so often for breath. Last night, he woke suddenly and started talking to his dead best friend. He's feverish again, but his terrible cough hasn't come back, so Evie has decided to keep him at home.

This may have been the best decision she's made since calling the operator when she found Liam, Evie decides in a moment of blacker - than - usual humor. Hollis looks mostly himself again -- besides his unusual paleness, but with Hollis that's more of a personality quirk than anything -- but once anyone attempted to talk to him, they'd quickly discover that his mind was, in fact, seething over with nonsense and babble.

Evie is sitting in their parlor, just down the hall from Hollis' office, where he is lying on the couch, alternately shivering and asking for more blankets and casting them off in a fit of overheating. Ostensibly, she is reading, but the book lies forgotten on the side table ; Evie does not require any more distraction than her own thoughts provide.

While Evie sits in the parlor, listening for any sign of trouble from Hollis, Hollis is not in his study. He has left his body there, but right now he is doing something similar to Liam's memory palace : he is walking through one of his memories.

For Hollis, it is not the year 196 any more ; it is the winter of 194, and he is with Liam.

They are walking companionably through downtown, not going to any particular place. It is a fine, clear winter day, and Hollis is not fine at all. He has been feeling rather sick for a while, and he believes he is running a fever -- which he is, actually. Hollis' memories stop after this one, and do not pick up for almost two weeks ; during the first days of this blank period, he was collapsed on the floor of the front hall. He remembers this vaguely, but places it incorrectly in 184, ten years before.

Hollis' vision is peculiarly clear today, and he is looking up at the clouds.

Suddenly, he hears a funny zipping sound, and looks right in time to catch a flash of grey between two buildings.

"What is that?" Hollis says sharply, and Liam shifts his gaze, looking at him.

"That's Moth," says Liam casually, looking down the alley the flash of grey disappeared into.

"Moth?" asks Hollis.

"Haven't you heard of him?" says Liam curiously. He looks at Hollis and sighs. "Stephen Eisenheim, then."

Hollis looks at Liam blankly.

"Threw himself under a train?" tries Liam, and suddenly Hollis remembers the name.

"Oh, him . . ." says Hollis, looking up at the clouds again.

"He's heir to the entire fortune," continues Liam. "I see him around the library now and then. You saw how he swung from building to building? He invented those grapple guns himself . . ." Liam trails off.

"It's a bit sad, really," continues Liam. "Here's young Stephen Eisenheim. He's heir to millions. He's single. And then he throws himself under a train, trying to end it all."

"Not sad at all," says Hollis. "You're only talking about what he showed to the world. Who knows what was in his head?"

"Still," says Liam. "The poor man."

Hollis checks his watch. He really ought to get home. "I've got to go," he says to Liam. "I'm expected." He's not, actually -- Evie is on a trip with one of her colleagues to the North Outlands, and won't return for almost a month yet.

"Well, I'll see you, then." says Liam.

Hollis goes home, steps into the front hall, takes off his shoes, and starts to go upstairs. He wakes up on the couch in his study, and it's cold.

Someone has Hollis by the shoulder, and is shaking him, calling him by name. He tries to escape the touch, but whoever it is is only more persistent, and so he opens his eyes.

It's Evie, and, seeing that he's opened his eyes, she says, "It's someone asking for you."

Hollis groans and makes to get up.

"Should I let him in?" asks Evie.

"Yes, yes," says Hollis irritably, drawing the sheet over himself. "I'll get decent later."

Evie is thrilled that Hollis seems to be awake now, and goes to the door for their visitor.

Hollis waits on the couch, impatiently, while he listens to Evie accompanying their visitor down the hall.

Hollis closes his eyes as the visitor enters.

"Hollis?" asks the visitor. "It's about Liam."

Hollis opens his eyes. It's Ashley, who looks like he should have a hat in his hands to twist.

"Yes?" says Hollis irritably, sitting up and wrapping the sheet around his torso. "What of him?"

"His will," says Ashley awkwardly. "Since he was unmarried, he put his things in your care in case of his death. You'll need to collect his things. Um."

"Well, I'll do that," says Hollis. "Once I'm well, that is."

"Of course," says Ashley. "I'll be leaving?" he says, looking in Evie's direction.

"Well, I'm done with you," says Hollis crossly. "Go ahead and leave, then."

Ashley says, "Thank you." He leaves, and Hollis lies back down.

"Evie, what day is it?" asks Hollis wearily, closing his eyes.

"Saturday," she says.

"Good," he mumbles. "I'll be going in on Monday, then."

"All right," she says, and leaves the room. Hollis is alone at last.

He sighs and draws the sheets around him. While he was feverish, he cast the sheets off in fits, desperate to cool himself. Now he is cold . . . it's autumn, after all. Isn't it?

Well, whether or not it is, Hollis intends to just go to sleep. He does not need to revisit his past with Liam any more than a wounded man needs salt rubbed in his wounds. He's been sick. He needs his rest, doesn't he?


	23. Chapter Eight, part II

Meanwhile, Moth -- or Stephen Eisenheim, as he was once known -- is not pleased.

Moth is, generally, never in a good mood on Saturdays, except when they are odd - numbered by the old French Revolution calendar, in which case they are good days, as is this Saturday.

When Moth was informed that Liam had died, apparently by his own hand, he had insisted that he attend the funeral, despite it being an ill day. And so he had attended.

Moth is a tall man, with rather sharp features, although his face as a whole is rather feral to the eye. He has brown eyes, although these are shaded by sunglasses due to an unfortunate sensitivity to light he has. His hair is brown and plain, cut rather long -- just long enough, in fact, that he can tie it back in a (rather short) ponytail so it doesn't get in his eyes.

When Moth was Stephen, he remembers attending school with all the other boys of his age. He does not remember much more than his isolation from the group and the seeming gulf between him and those around him.

The last thing he remembers doing as Stephen is catching a train.

He remembers standing placidly with the crowd, preparing to go to his grandmother's house in the Outlands. Stephen, as he always did, considered the oncoming train with a sick fascination.

Then he remembers a feeling like a push, the same compulsion that had led him to chew his wrists when he was ashamed, and then he was in front of the train and there was still time to dash to the other side of the tracks, but there wasn't any time at all. There was only the one moment, all moments as one, and the pain like a knot linking one to one to one to one.

Moth wakes up in the hospital, and Stephen is gone -- it is as if he has simply stepped outside for a cigarette and never come back. There is only this new person, who lies suspended in mid - air because neither his back nor his chest can bear the strain of lying in a bed.

Moth is tinkering with his grapple - guns right now, and swearing in a way a passer - by could mistake for pleasant anger. In fact, Moth is furious with these guns. The mechanism is sticking, and they are his only form of transportation.

Moth has always been a creature of the air, because it is an ill thing to walk on the ground with others of that kind. And so, with a mutilated mash of bone for wings after the train, Moth was forced to reconsider his options.

Eventually, Moth hit upon the idea of grapple - guns. They are modeled on normal pistols, but he has modified them so that once they fire the small grappling - hook, there is a retrieval mechanism similar to a trigger which he depresses with his pinky to retrieve the hook. It took Moth months of practice to refine his expertise to the point where he had the timing of the guns down to the second.

Now the mechanism is failing, and Moth is beginning to consider that all they need is oiling.

He swears one last time aloud, wipes his brow with the back of his right hand, and dissembles the guns. He oils all the little gears and such until they are in fine condition once more, and then he reassembles them.

He turns and fires one of the grapple - guns into the nearest wall, which is long pockmarked from such testing. It sticks, and when he depresses the retracting lever, it springs back to its source with no hesitation at all.

"Damn things," he says under his breath. He may have invented them himself -- or at least modified them -- but they still malfunction from time to time, requiring him to fix them, which is the worst part of them.

The best part is using them. It's a powerful feeling, playing with gravity and physics like he does -- using walls to slingshot himself to his destination, letting go of the earth to make contact with the familiar sky.

The grapple – guns were, in a former life, actual pistols. They had belonged to his great – grandfather or some such relative, before guns had been outlawed. Moth had found them in the attic one day and decided to modify them as he has.

With the guns fixed, Moth can leave the house. He sighs and checks his watch. Hmm. It's a good time for leaving.

Moth holsters the guns and puts on his dark glasses. He goes out into the main hall and dons his hat before walking out the door.

It's still far too bright outside, despite the late hour, and Moth shuts his eyes as further protection from the glare. He listens for a moment. Hmm. Left is definitely better.

He unholsters his gun, holds it in his left hand for a moment, and fires, upwards to his left.

Moth gets yanked into the air ; the grapple is attached to a point near the roofline of an old brick building. He knows -- after dark, Moth takes all the time he needs to come out here and watch.

His other gun is already in his hand ; he fires a little to his right and down, catching off the façade of a relatively new building and swinging upward. At the apex, he almost slips and falls, before catching himself deftly, using the building across the street to keep his momentum going.

Moth is a familiar figure to the people here ; the dashing young fellow in bowler hat and dark glasses, swinging about through the streets. Most people have no idea who he used to be, but speculation runs rampant -- one of the most popular is some nonsense about his being an illegitimate son of the King's, which is utterly untrue, of course. He knows his family history back to King Alexis, back in the nineteen - fifties -- they're well - bred, are the Eisenheims.

Most of the young ladies find him dashing, for the striking way he combines his debonair bowler hat with the elegant rakishness of his hair - do. The young men believe he must be some sort of genius inventor, having made his grapple - guns himself -- Moth is no genius. He knows it -- all that there was to the guns was a few simple modifications, really.

It's a bit of a trick, using the guns. At night it's an easy business, because Moth can see what he's doing. Day - time, it's much more thrilling, because he's trusting his life to his memories of the city and where the buildings are. Most of it's acrobatics, because if he didn't steer, he'd crash into buildings, and if he couldn't slow down, it'd all end in disaster. Only a little bit is aiming.

Even though he knows what he's doing, Moth still has his moments of panic from time to time. Such as now.

He's got a good "grip" on a familiar old building and has just "reached" for another that's not as familiar to him when he realizes his grapples aren't attached to anything. He's retracted the grapple from the familiar building, and the other grapple isn't grabbing onto anything. He's hanging in midair.

Moth acts quickly, and "grabs" for a building he's never used before -- to his right, across the street. The grapple hooks on, and now it's all down to his reflexes, so he won't slam into the wall.

He twists and fires up - street, trying to catch another building up there. The grapple snags weakly onto the building, and Moth curses aloud. He's still on a collision course with the wall.

Moth can feel the wall approaching him, a thin wind on the palms of his hands, as he hurriedly retracts the other grapple. He's got one chance to do this.

Moth fires across the street again, and the grapple snags. He comes within an ace of possibly breaking his ribs on the wall before he rebounds back to the other side.

Though Moth has been calm and still within throughout this all, his instincts don't agree with him, and as he's yanked over to the other side of the street, a delayed fear reaction in the form of adrenaline goes coursing through his body. His pulse goes up, his mouth goes dry, and his wings attempt to flare out and slow him down, resulting in needling pains when the smashed mess tries to move.

Moth swears again, more strongly, and willfully suppresses the reaction as he gets a grip on another building, continuing his journey downtown.

He arrives at the library in what he would call a state of dishabille, except that's not correct at all, because that would imply he were wearing a certain sort of underclothes which he isn't wearing. He's a bit disheveled, is what he should call it.

Moth holsters the guns, takes off his bowler, and walks inside, taking off his dark glasses as he does. He pockets the glasses and carries his hat in his hand as he walks over to the front desk to sign in. The usual receptionist is there, and he mumbles a hello as he gives her his identification.

She smiles and hands it back to him. "Nice to see you again, Moth," she says perfunctorily.

Moth likes her because she knows that he is not the Stephen it says he is on the card, he is Moth. He was formerly Stephen, but he is not any more.

They don't even wear their hair the same -- Stephen favored letting his hair hang down around his face loose, where Moth wears it up in a ponytail. Stephen preferred dark pastels where Moth wears dark colours. Stephen walked about in the daytime, free as a bird, where Moth skulks about at night. Stephen floated about high above the streets where Moth is essentially ground-bound. Stephen --

Moth cuts off that train of thought neatly. These morbid considerations, careful comparings, of himself to a young man who went away, are for home and nightfall, not for this bright library and daytime.

He walks into the main reading room, which is, as usual, completely deserted. Only a very few bother with memberships at the library any more. Moth is one of those few.

He comes here often, does Moth. It's practically his second home.

He hardly ever reads, though. Moth remembers reading being one of Stephen's few passions in life, besides his sketching and music. He adored the classics, although he couldn't read Latin (nor Greek) and so had to find them in translation.

Moth is more interested in the mechanics of things, which he can figure out for himself with study. Really he just comes here because he is expected to. Stephen Eisenheim would have kept coming after the . . . incident . . . with the train. And so Moth comes to the library every once in a while.

He knows what people think about him -- or Stephen, rather. The young ladies believe him dashing, charming. The young men believe he's a genius of unparalleled sort.

Which isn't exactly true. Stephen _was_ rather intelligent, but he never fit anyone's definition of charming -- he was far too shy. Moth isn't very gregarious either.

Moth walks into the stacks where Late Twentieth Century is located, still expecting to hear Liam come around the corner with a friendly hello for him. Liam and Moth had been on good terms before Liam's demise. They were never quite friends, per se, but Liam was always kind to Moth.

Moth misses Liam already, it seems, because the library feels empty, curiously enough, without him present. It's a funny thing. It feels like a mausoleum.

It looks like one, too. Dust swirls in the air, visible in the few shafts of light falling from the open shades. There's no one else around, and Moth savors the silence.

He hears footsteps behind him and turns around.

It's Leslie.

"Hello, Moth," she says, somewhat shocked to see him here.

"Leslie," he says.

"Looking for anything specific?" she says. "I've never seen you here on a Saturday before."

"I've never _been_ here on a Saturday before," says Moth.

"That would explain it," says Leslie, smiling. "So I'll see you around, then."

"All right," says Moth numbly. It's going to take a few minutes for the silence to become comfortable again, and he wants her to leave.

Which she does, obligingly, leaving Moth alone in the library - cum - mausoleum.

Moth breathes deeply once the sound of her footsteps fades away, absorbing the scent of the library -- dust, with a hint of baking bread. He knows that this is just the smell of slowly decomposing ink and paper, but he enjoys it all the same. It reminds him of home. Not the stuffy old heap he -- _Stephen_ -- grew up in, but _home_ . . . the close and comfortable library of his earliest days.

Moth remembers awaking into lightness. He remembers feeling that something was _wrong_ as soon as he awoke, and wanting to drift back into warm sleep. He had realized, then, that this was not a warm bed, nor was this his home.

Did he have a home? Moth remembers asking himself this, before there were people around him, weeping and thanking God for his health, in the quiet.

Of course, the woman who called herself his mother had said that his home was not very far from the hospital where he lay, that it was a beautiful old house with a history of long centuries. Moth did not yet remember having been Stephen, and so his earliest concept of _home_ was the white room, where he hung suspended in time, suspended in space as well, waiting to heal.

Some sort of time must have passed, but Moth does not remember it. He recalls endless days of half - sleep, accompanied by what felt like the grip of vices on his ribs. He had broken them badly, said the woman called mother, when he leapt onto the tracks, or when the train rolled over him -- no one can quite tell. His wings were shredded ruins, a mash of bone and skin and muscle that would never function as they had before. The woman called mother had told him this, with tears in her eyes. Moth had not understood until he had got a chance to look back and he saw -- she was afraid that he would become nothing without flight. Stephen would have. Moth wouldn't.

His first, best memories that are not strictly of pain are visions of the library, where he was brought. Stephen's old room was up a flight of stairs, and the woman called mother was afraid to shake his still - healing ribs about more than necessary. So they had bedded him in the library, and there he had stayed.

The library was dark and close, familiar and friendly, holding Moth in a kind embrace. Though he could not yet stand to walk very far -- who would have thought that the muscles encaging his ribs were used so much in walking -- sitting and reading was no trouble at all. He spent many happy hours reading in the library, drawing himself away from the pain that awaited him in the world they called real.

Moth found no reality in that world, for there was none to be found there. The light stung his eyes, and it hurt to walk. Everything seemed only a dream outside his library, and that was how Moth treated it.

The woman called mother was sad that her son Stephen seemed to have gone away into himself, taking his meals in the library and spending endless hours silent with his books and journals -- but that had been before the train. Her son had returned, though he called himself Moth. But he smiled and laughed (though he grimaced when the light hid his eyes, and had to be guided from room to room when the sun was strong), and though it was months before he ate with the family again, she felt that if Moth was not Stephen, then he was a good enough substitute.

Moth remembers the first dinner he took with his blood family. Until then he had taken his meals in the library, fastidiously, eating little and musing over a book all the while. This room set aside for eating seemed strange to him, filled with smiling people as it was -- at least the light did not burn his eyes.

He had had unfamiliar clothes brought to him -- brightly colored, gay things which he was unaccustomed to. Even his books did not speak of clothes such as these, though they spoke of parties and dinners often enough. He had dressed in them anyway, for to come to the dinner in any other dress would have been bad -- this was Moth's understanding of the whole affair.

When he had entered the room, still guided by a minder, Moth remembers that the chatter of inconsequential talk had ceased. All eyes had turned to him -- although he couldn't see them, he had seemed to feel their gazes as weights upon him, dragging him down to this level of existence. He had dropped his head, wishing instantly that he could return to his comfortable library. To home.

There would be no such returning, though, excluding the brief respites he was allowed for relaxation and sleep -- for during Moth's period of convalescence, the woman called mother had produced another child. A girl. Moth's sister.

There was still no doubt, though, that it would be Moth who would take over the family fortune and its managing someday. Even though he seemed not quite right to his family, they understood that this infant girl would never be able to manage the family. Her femaleness had nothing at all to do with it, though -- for had she been older, Moth would have been kindly ferried off to a convalescents' home in the country, being that he was certainly in no mental condition to control the Eisenheim fortune. Nothing could be done for it -- Elizabeth was hardly a year old, and an infant is certainly worse at ruling a family than even a lunatic.

Moth blinks twice, violently, dispelling the train of remembrances. There is no need to resurrect old ghosts -- although Elizabeth is older now, as is he. Sometimes Moth worries that once the remaining family decides Elizabeth capable of managing things, he will be quietly packed off to the country to live out his days in a convalescents' home somewhere. It doesn't really matter, though, for Moth has a few good friends around the Laboratories -- had, he corrects, as Liam has regretfully left this earth behind for a better one. Hollis he hardly knows, and Ashley he has hardly a passing acquaintance with. If Moth's family should decide to follow through on crowning Elizabeth heir, he'll be well sunk, with nowhere to go but the countryside.

He sighs and sits down at the table. Perhaps he'll sleep now, with no memory of what he meant to accomplish when he set off for the library this morning. He'll wake soon enough, at any rate.

Moth does, conveniently enough, awake after a short enough time that he feels decently rested. It's darker here, and so he supposes there must be some sort of windows in the library, because it only gets dark like this once the sun goes down. He looks at his watch -- even he can hardly see it in the gloom -- and discovers that it's late enough he should be home by now. Elizabeth will have been put to bed, and the family will be worrying about him.

Moth sighs and rises from his comfortable seat. It's time to go home.

He walks back out to the front desk and signs himself out beneath the gaze of the receptionist, who is also ready to go home. "Thank you, Stephen," she says, unusually sharp with him.

"You're welcome," he mutters, donning his hat and dark glasses as he leaves.

It's dark enough outside, and there are so few people, that as Moth unholsters his guns, he pockets his glasses, tucking them inside his secure coat pocket, where they won't shatter.

Moth sighs, breathes deeply, and fires his first grapple, up into the dark - purple evening sky. Evening, he finds, is the best time for this. It's quieter, sleepier -- more pure. The best time of any.

The night is clear, without being chilly or muggy. It's just _clear_. Maybe other nights are somehow clouded, obscured -- Moth can never hold the sense - memory of night long enough to test.

He swings through the night sky, feeling, for once, whole and undisturbed by memories of Stephen -- that strange person who used to share his skin. It was a long time ago -- that's his excuse when he meets someone who knew Stephen. It was a long time ago, and now his name is Moth, because Stephen left. No one really understands.

When Moth arrives, the house is dim and quiet. He slips in the front door, leaves his hat on the hatrack, and goes into the library. It is the way it always is -- familiar.

Moth doesn't bother to undress -- just collapses onto the sofa and falls asleep. It doesn't matter, really -- he has nowhere in particular to be tomorrow. Only here.


	24. Chapter Eight, parts III, IV

Evie is tired. Everyone is, after the events of the past week, what with Liam's death and Hollis' illness. They understand that she was close to Liam, and Hollis is her husband, and so they've all been treating her with kid gloves. Joachim shyly offered his condolences in the form of an ineptly - baked chocolate cake. The Doktor had offered to take her out to lunch, delivering the invitation in his charming German accent. Ashley had simply been there, silent in a way that someone outside their circle would have interpreted as insensitive. It was Ashley's way of supporting her, saying he was there if she needed him.

The will had taken them all quite by surprise. Being that he was a bachelor with no known family, he had left the care of his things to Hollis -- who was in no condition to care for them at the moment, thought Evie sourly. Of his funds he had specified that whatever money remained in his possession at his death be donated to a suitable charity -- which was a difficult task, and eventually they had chosen a children's home for the gift. Oddest of all, he had said that his cat be given to someone called Stephen Eisenheim -- "or Moth, as I knew him". Puzzling indeed -- especially when they remembered that Liam had never seemed to own a cat. The cat was, however, located, and now it only remained to locate its new owner. Whoever Moth Eisenheim was, he probably wouldn't be much gratified by the gift of a slightly neurotic, underweight cat with enough feline charms to fill a thimble and have space left over.

Indeed, his suicide note had taken them more by surprise. No one had suspected he was anything more than a happy bachelor, content to live alone -- except for that cat. Of course, it was a mannerly thing to say that proper goodbyes ought to be given to the only woman he knew -- God, Evie hated that damn stereotype! He was dead, and she knew he loved her like a friend. Get on with it, was her thought of the whole business. He's dead. I know he's dead.

Yet it seemed he _hadn't_ been a contented bachelor -- with cat -- at all. Guilty smiles had broken out when someone broached the topic that Liam might not have been in love with Evie at all, but with Hollis instead. Which was another thing Evie hated -- so he was homosexual, so what? He's dead. (Was he dead? asked a sneaky little voice.) Definitely dead, very dead, Evie thinks in return. Perhaps Hollis isn't, but, well, Hollis never knew. Liam's dead, let's all move along with it.

* * *

In one of his letters to Leila, his girlfriend of the time, Stephen (later Moth) had asked playfully: "If I were to take my life, wouldn't I stay beautiful forever?"

Later, while he kept his vigil at Moth's bedside, Charles had had time to reflect on those words, which Stephen had read to him on a late - spring evening in their room. Charles had been a freshman, Stephen a senior, and both had applied for single rooms -- there having been a shortage of these, they were put together in one room. They had got along well, Charles avoiding Stephen as any freshman avoids seniors -- with a passion -- and even became friends later. Which was how it came to be that Stephen read his draft of a letter to Charles.

Stephen had never been confident in his skill at putting words together, where Charles had always excelled in that department -- or at least, felt comfortable with his talent in that area. Stephen had asked if his freshman roommate would listen to his draft -- and so Charles had listened.

Charles had always suspected himself of being less than heterosexual as to his sexual orientation, but listening to Stephen read his letter aloud on that late - spring evening, Charles had realized that the answer to that particular question was definitely "homosexual". And so the answer had remained -- well, not as if anyone had ever asked about the matter. It wasn't any of their business.

But yes, that was when Charles had known.

He hadn't really been listening once Stephen got past the salutation -- instead, he'd been watching the play of light and shadow across his face. Stephen had been casually leaned back in his chair as he read, the last of the sunlight pouring across his face. Charles had been tempted by half - complete lines of poetry dancing through his thoughts, but he could never track them down for long enough to finish them. It didn't matter, anyway -- as far as Charles was concerned about love poetry, Sappho and Byron had the subject pretty well covered.

It was better just to watch, Charles had decided. When Stephen asked his opinion of the letter, Charles had muttered something about maybe altering some of the grammar and then recalled a test he needed to study for. He had fled the room for the library, where he quietly expounded on his troubles to a collection of Poe.

Charles does not remember anything else about him and Stephen until the incident with the train, which Charles privately believes to have been a suicide attempt on Stephen's part -- even though those who were actually present said they had seen someone push Stephen onto the tracks. It had played out the same way, at any rate.

Charles had turned fifteen just before the end of the semester, in the week of school after graduation. It was a fine time to have a birthday, Stephen had said once. Except if you had exams, because they always seemed to fall in that week. But otherwise it was a lovely time to have been born -- because the year was born anew then, said Stephen.

"Everyone says that the New Year starts on the first of January," he had held forth. "I really don't think so. Because it's cold and dreary when January begins; it's a time of death -- well, maybe not death -- loneliness, for certain. Have you ever walked in the countryside after a snowfall? I don't mean just a little flurry -- Charles, I mean the kind of snow that dyes everything white for a few weeks. Have you ever gone walking then? You stop because suddenly you realize how quiet it is. You can't hear anyone talking, and there's no birds singing anywhere. The insects are all dead, and it's as if you're the only person alive in some new world. That's what January is -- loneliness after the snow comes.

"Now, I like May better, or early June. Because that's when things are starting to warm out -- the snow finally goes away, and it's not so terrible when one goes for a walk. I grew up in the countryside at my grandmother's house, you know. It's a wonderful place in that time of year. Most places are beautiful then -- flowers bloom, and you don't have to worry about the frost taking them any more. My grandmother planted lilies, and I loved watching them bloom in spring. It meant that the snow was over and done with for another summer. It meant, to me, that the year had begun again."

He wasn't yet used to saying "I am fifteen" yet when he heard of Stephen's incident.

He had been reading a book of short stories at the time, and when his mother told him that he was wanted at the school, he had said, "What!" It was no question, because behind it lay the question he dared not ask: _Is it Stephen_?

His mother knew that they had shared a room at school, had exchanged letters during winter break -- had mistaken this courteousness for friendship. When the news came to her of his injury, she summoned her son, believing that his reaction would be one of shock.

It was.

Some sort of time must have passed between then and the next moment, but Charles does not recall it -- it's just a blank in his memory. He remembers, though, being shocked to see Stephen as he was.

His former roommate lay unconscious in a sort of hammock - sling contraption. He might very well have been dead, for all Charles knew when he entered the room. However, Charles had instantly known what some others had never discovered -- or had taken months to discover. Stephen no longer inhabited the body in the hospital. That body was the province of Moth now.

It had only taken one glance to see that, Charles had thought angrily while people insisted on calling him Stephen. The eyes were the same delicate shade of brown, the hair still dark and long, the skin still pale, but there was nothing of Stephen here. Even when he was silent, Moth left a signature much different from Stephen's on the body. Where Stephen had had perfect, erect posture, Moth slumped slightly, except when the posture put pressure on his broken ribs, when he jerked upright. Moth seemed innocent where Stephen had been a world - weary romantic. They were opposites, and where Charles had seen fit to adore Stephen from a distance, he wanted to be closer to Moth. Because Moth was alone, and needed someone -- it was so hard to put it into words. Perhaps "possessive" was right -- but then again, perhaps not. And perhaps it was "protective" -- but perhaps not.

Yet gazing at Moth, feeling the order of his world turn over, Charles had definitely felt _something_ towards him -- perhaps this was what they meant when they talked of love, he had thought later, going home with his mother beside him.

Charles had made regular visits to Moth in the time that followed, before the start of term, and he was one of the first people Moth recognized. When finally he awoke, Moth had blinked in surprise and said :

"Charles?"

He had nodded in response, feeling as if any response he could make would only sound ridiculous and artificial, like dialogue in some of the worse poetry he'd read, constructed around the meter. When he had read those lines, he had thought that the author had composed poorly there. Now he understood : sometimes real people talked like that, too.

Charles had vowed that he would not let Moth come to harm. It was a foolish schoolboy's promise, for he hardly saw Moth. Yet still, Charles felt it was sincere. It seemed to him that there was a time of upheavals, of tribulation, of terror soon to arrive. And where Stephen -- who, though romantic and flighty in nature, had possessed a weird inner strength -- would have survived, he was sure that delicate Moth would not.

And so Charles had made his promise, unaware of the prophecy therein -- that a time of upheaval was coming. It was.


	25. Chapter Eight, parts V, VI

It's kind of like the bad jokes Liam used to tell:

Hollis walks into the library. The second guy ducks.

Or something to that effect.

Hollis goes in, and he expects to hear his friend running to greet him -- or, more likely, roller-skating at high speed -- to hear Liam shout his name, as if he were going deaf instead of blind. It's almost funny, remembering a dead friend. You get to think: So that's the way it was.

And there are all those empty spaces, like the space between the branches of a tree where one has been cut out because it was diseased. Slowly, you become aware that something is missing -- and then you realize what. Like some kind of puzzle -- or one of those optical illusions, where it takes you a moment to realize the trick.

It's very cold, unexpectedly so. Hollis shivers, and doesn't bother even unbuttoning his coat. It's almost as if winter has come early to the Library; probably it's only that the boilers need refueling. It's very theatrical, anyway: Hollis half - expects some kind of comic villain to be here, declaiming loudly about his nefarious plans.

No comic villain, just Moth, who's certainly comic, in a tragic way. Sunglasses inside on a cloudy day is strange, yes, and makes him look blind. The long coat is just over the top, and combined with the guns holstered at his hips, he looks like some kind of bizarre gunslinger. A well-dressed gunslinger, nonetheless.

Is he sobbing? Hollis steps closer (on little cat feet, he thinks). No. He's laughing. At what, Hollis doesn't care to know. He's just here for Liam's things.

Hollis goes into Liam's office and starts putting things into boxes. He sweeps the papers off the desk into one box, seals it, and labels it "Desk". He'll probably never look at these things again, but you have to keep up pretenses, don't you? Empties the cabinets into "Drawer One", "Drawer Two", "Drawer Three", and so on. Carefully boxes his desk supplies in "Desk Supplies". Puts all the "Drawers" into a larger box marked "Cabinet".

It's just three boxes. Liam's life can be packed up, distilled, into three boxes. Of course, there was the matter of his house, but he had said his clothes were to be sold. So it comes down to just these boxes. Because this was his life, the place where he lived it. This was where he was, not the boarding house; he _existed_ there, he _lived_ at the library.

Hollis sighs and rubs his forehead with the back of his hand. His forehead feels a bit hotter than normal, but he doesn't feel feverish. He must be getting better, he thinks, and chuckles to himself. He's still a bit weak and pale, but the worrisome fever is gone at last, and he believes he's ready to re-embark upon his project. It'll be hard to catch on to where he left off on the thread of his discoveries, but he can catch on, there's no doubt. With a brain like Hollis', constantly running on full tilt, dashing from idea to idea, you have to have the talent to pick up where you left off. Or at least try.

"Y' should be at home, shouldn't y'?" asks a voice from behind him, and Hollis whirls in a flurry of déjà vu, as if time has turned back a week and he's talking with Liam again.

"I mean you look a bit sick." clarifies the voice. It's Moth. Hollis relaxs.

"Oh, hello, Moth," he says, picking up the boxes -- or rather, the box labeled "Desk Supplies". "Didn't expect to see you around." He pauses, waiting for Moth to offer his greetings as well before Hollis asks where he could find a hand trolley.

"Moth?" asks Moth, pulling his hair out of its ponytail. "Who do you mean?"

Hollis says, "You're Stephen, aren't you? Stephen Eisenheim?"

"That I am," says Stephen, and bows.

The voice is the clue Hollis missed; it's soft and educated, unlike Moth's even tones. Moth has a forgettable voice, just as some people have forgettable faces whose details slip from the mind as soon as the eyes leave them. Stephen's voice is commanding despite its softness; it's a voice that demands to be listened to.

Hollis notices, also, that even Stephen's stance is different. It's straighter; almost a military stance.

"How's your . . . novel going?" Hollis asks, trying to kill time.

"Fairly well," says Stephen. "Did you need a hand trolley?"

Suddenly, there's a hand trolley sitting next to Stephen. Hollis stares at it for a moment, wondering where on earth it had appeared from. He decides that it was there in the first place to settle his mind and says, "Yes, I did. Thank you."

"My pleasure," says Stephen. "Now, if you don't mind, I've got some reference work I need to do."

Hollis inclines his head in lieu of saying goodbye. Stephen turns and goes back to the table where he was sitting and sits back down.

Hollis stacks the boxes on the hand trolley; first "Cabinet", on top of which is "Desk", and on top of "Desk" is "Desk Supplies", which Hollis finds distantly amusing. He walks the hand trolley out into the main lobby, where he signs himself out. He walks outside and he goes home. He puts the boxes in the upstairs hallway, absently, hoping he won't have to think of them ever again. It's too soon now . . . perhaps in a year or two . . . or three . . . Hollis snickers as he pushes "Cabinet" closer to the wall. It's almost funny . . . but not quite.

* * *

Molly was at the Market, looking at some oranges.

There were three oranges, actually. Three perfectly round (well, they were a bit dented) citrus fruits, smelling faintly of the groves they came from.

Molly had seen oranges before, but only once or twice; gifts from some distant relative with property in the far Southern Outlands, where they grew oranges. At Twelve Oaks, it was far too cold to grow oranges, and besides, who would want one? City people liked exotic fruits, Molly had found. Country people didn't.

She assumed they were fabulously expensive because they had come such a long way, but didn't want to ask. It was far more fun to just contemplate them . . . to examine them with her eyes . . .

Someone bumped into Molly, and she turned around in surprise.

It was an old man, who had dropped his groceries.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir," gabbled Molly as she stooped to pick up said dropped groceries and handed them to him.

"Thank you," he said stiffly, and Molly noticed how _tall_ he was; nearly six feet tall, quite a height for such an aged man. His white hair was neatly trimmed, swept back behind his ears from its centre part. He had a high forehead, emphasized both by the part and by the style of his hair. There were freckles running across the bridge of his nose.

And Molly saw that he had to be blind, for although his eyes were blue, they did not possess that clear quality which most eyes possess when lit from the side. His eyes seemed to reject the light, to deny it; they were a blue that seemed to keep secrets, the blue of a lake on a troubled summer day. A blue that kept itself to itself . . . and whatever thoughts passed behind it, were thought alone. Or however it went; Molly remembered a quotation Annabelle had said once to that effect. Something similar, anyway.

"You're welcome," said Molly with as much lady-like grace as she could muster, and curtsied.

He tipped his hat to her and continued on.

Molly had no real reason to be here, and she decided she'd go home. Sarah had said for her to go watch people at the Market, anyway, and hadn't said when, so she had a good excuse . . .

Molly turned the corner to go home, and someone yanked her back. And for the first time, she _saw_ the house.

The red bricks, spattered with debris. The slate roof. The door, the glass windows which obscured the inside of the house from view (she knew there were curtains on the inside which produced this effect), the faint smell of apples.

And then it was gone. The house crumbled like a falling cake, or like a delicate pastry tromped on by a military boot. One moment it stood as always in red-brick splendor . . . the next there was a mess of bricks and broken glass, wooden support beams and floors, where the house had stood.

Molly stared at the mess, confused by its suddenness. She expected the house to still be there, and only when passersby began to rush to the rubble and shift it aside (seeking, she presumed, survivors of the collapse, or perhaps looting the remains) did she realize that it was gone. The house -- her home in the strange city -- was gone. For ever.

"Was that your house?" asked a voice, and Molly turned around.

The speaker was a lady of respectable age, who looked at Molly with flat, kind curiosity. Molly nodded in response to her question.

"That's too bad," said the lady, who turned away from Molly and returned to her shopping.

Molly blinked, her eyes blurry with tears all of a sudden. The house had been her _home_ here, and now it was simply gone. Did none of them see her standing there -- the young girl in a plain dress, hands clasped in front of her, staring solemnly at the ruins of a house?

None of them did, it seemed. For even though a few hurried past her to scavenge from the rubble -- or to dig through it for any who might have survived -- none of them really _saw_ her. They glimpsed her from the sides of their eyes, but none of them bothered even to stop and ask if she was all right.

Molly wiped her eyes with her sleep. From there, it looked very much like her destination would be the Orphan's Home, for she had no money to buy a train ticket home to Twelve Oaks -- and what would the house be without its mistress? Miss Tanith had not yet chosen an heir when she was called away to the city, and so the house would pass on to her cousin, it seemed likely -- for both she and Uncle Robert were likely dead now, leaving no one with real claim to the house.

She sniffled a bit, and sat down on a bench, still watching the crew of amateur rescuers digging through the rubble of her home. Far away, a siren had begun to warble its high - pitched, screechy tune, but Molly ignored the sound. There was a brick sitting next to her shoe, and she studiously fixed her attention on it, so she would not have to think of all that had been lost. It was a red brick -- half the bricks in the city were -- and she pushed her mind away from the thought of the house which had so shortly before been built of red brick. It was a little crumbled around the edges -- an old brick -- and clumps of mortar stuck to it here and there. Someone -- a bored schoolboy, most likely -- had drawn a little stick - man on the side that would have faced the street with a graphite pencil. She studied it with detached interest.

"Hullo," said a voice beside her, and Molly pretended not to have heard.

"Miss?" said the voice, perplexed, and Molly turned her head a bit to observe this new person. It was a young boy, of perhaps her own age, with neatly combed dark hair and a smudge of dirt on his forehead, where perhaps he had wiped it with a begrimed hand. He was dressed in much the same way ; street things, prettied up a little bit.

"What?" said Molly, dropping her gaze to the brick again.

"I dunno," said the boy, obviously stalling.

"Well, _what_?" said Molly impatiently. "My house has just collapsed, I doubt it's that important."

The boy blushed, producing an amusing effect on his forehead, where the pink blush was overlain by a skim of dirt. They lapsed into silence, and the boy began to swing his feet back and forth, as children often do.

Out of the crowd appeared the old man who had knocked into Molly earlier. He cried:

"Thomas! Is that her?"

"I dunno, mister," said the boy beside her. "Is it?"

"Wit will get you nowhere at your age, Thomas," said the old man darkly. "Weren't you the young lady who helped me earlier?" he added to Molly.

"Yes," Molly said dubiously. "I might have been."

"You were looking at the oranges," he said. "And I walked into you."

Molly looked up at him, sullenly.

"Was the house still called Greenhame?" he asked, almost blushing. "Owned by a man called Robert?"

Molly looked at him suspiciously.

"His sister, Tanith?"

The old man stood for a moment, thinking:

"I remember Robert had a daughter -- Margaret."

"Miss Margaret's dead," said Molly quietly, staring at her shoes. She looked up at the old man, as innocently as she could manage.

His eyes widened. "_Is_ she? When?"

"Not sure," said Molly dully, kicking her feet back and forth. "While ago."

The old man looked off in the direction of the rubble.

" 'Spect Miss Tanith's dead, too," said Molly, "and Uncle Robert. Stephanie and Anna, too. All of 'em. Dead. Just me."

"Oh." said the old man. "Oh, my. Have you got anyplace to stay?"

"No," said Molly, staring at the brick. " 'Spect I'll go to the orphanage. Don't have any family any more."

"Not after that," said the old man, musingly. "Well, I'm sorry to have borrowed you. I was going to ask you to lunch, but I suppose -- "

Molly looked up. "Lunch?" she asked.


	26. Chapter Nine, parts I, II

Chapter Nine : A Wish For Someone

He has begun to notice his hands.

Not as if they've changed or anything; they're still his hands. The left hand has a perfect right triangle of moles on the back, and the right hand has a tiny mole on the palm side of the flesh between his thumb and first finger. A scar runs across the back of his left wrist, circling around onto the soft flesh on the palm side. The watch worn on his right wrist instead of left. The palm and fingers almost exactly the same length. Uncut nails; the one on his left middle finger's raggedy on the end. He should really trim it.

As a child, he was taught that these -- stocky, flexible hands -- were the hands of a true musician, that the long, thin, delicate hands imagined to indicate superiority at the instrument didn't. He can still force the thumb and pinky of both his hands, when the hand is flat on a surface, to make a one-hundred-and-eighty degree angle to each other. And he still habitually clips his nails as short as his parents once demanded -- even though he is not theirs anymore.

His first childhood memories are of The Instrument, as he customarily thought of it. Because it took up most of his time, it deserved capital letters in his thinking . . . and because he was a little afraid of it, as well.

He had loved the thing at first; a hulking thing, big enough that he could have fit inside its casing. He never attempted to prove this theory, though, judging that he would receive too much trouble from his parents. The only thing he ever accomplished at the piano was endless hours of practice.

As he grew older, his playing had gotten better; so much practice was bound to do him good. His parents were determined to have him become a musician, though God alone knew for what reason, for there wasn't very much money in music, unless one were a conductor in an orchestra in the city. Yet still his parents were adamant that he become a musician. That was the only goal of his childhood. And he wanted to meet it, if only to make his parents happy . . . and also to fill the family tradition. His father's people, the Karleins, and his mother's people, the Bells, had all been artists, and his father made a living as a moderately popular portrait artist.

When he began to approach college, he found that piano had never been what he was meant to do in life. Perhaps it could be a good enough amusement someday, but it would never be what paid his bills.

He began to realize that while it was fun enough to let his hands waltz over the ivory keys at home, it was far more engaging to imagine what was happening to the elementary particles of things. The piano was real. The atoms were real as well, but he had not been brought into contact with that reality forcibly as a young child. He had discovered it himself as a young man . . . and that was what made it so joyous to him. They belonged to him, not to his parents.

When he announced his interests, just before his entrance into college, there was a general shock in the household. More than a shock, really -- it was as though the general order of things had simply heaved itself upside-down overnight. And with regret, his parents simply allowed him to go -- although, depending on whom you hear the story from, he was also disowned and told never to come back to the house again.

He was hardly eighteen at the time, and so he put aside his budding interest in physics. He had heard stories about the Capitol, and so it seemed he'd find a better time of it there, if a better time was to be had.

He came to the city with more or less nothing, expecting the same. He was no idealist then; he had heard the many cautionary tales of young men who took the wrong choices and came at the wrong times, and died far from home and family. He had also heard the tales of the young men who came to the city and made it well -- not rich, but well. Enough to live on, anyway.

He slummed around the bars at first, knowing vaguely that it was popular to have musicians in bars. He was lucky enough to find employment that way, and lucky enough to stick around. Lucky, lucky, lucky. He's gotten tired of luck and fortune since then. Why shouldn't he? He lived on them his first years here. And as they say, familiarity breeds contempt. This is, more or less, one of the great truths of his life.

While he played the old songs and the new ones in the bar, he began to look for some place where he might continue his education. He lived in an apartment, which he shared with another man who worked nights, and he had a good amount of money stored up in a collected book of music he hollowed out for that purpose. He believed it might be enough to pay for college someday.

When he had first come to the city, his accent had been embarrassingly thick, marking him as an outsider and a foreigner. And his name had been equally distinctive: Joachim Karlein. Very German, he was often told. Or Polish, depending on the mood of whoever took issue with his name. His name had not been his choice; it had been chosen for him by his parents.

He ignored most of it, though. Because though the city was not always kind to him -- thus the once-broken nose, set for him by some kindly matron whose name he had never noted, but still healed slightly crooked -- it was a place of wonder anyhow. Where in his hometown, as a quiet pianist as his parents had wished him, could he have ever even been involved in the bar fight that had won him a scar across his left temple? And certainly, even had he incurred a similar scar at home, it would not have been dyed by ink prescribed as disinfectant by an inept landlady. It was once he no longer felt the need to bandage it that he began wearing his hair with slight bangs on that side, to hide the scar he felt was so unattractive. It only earned him more attention, though, for the few ladies he saw daily thought it dashing, resulting in the assortment of fruitless pursuits he was accustomed to after a short time.

He never quite understood what made him so attractive. It certainly couldn't be his hands, short and stocky with popping veins. It might have been his complection, had that not been marred by the effect of the broken nose and the ink-stained scar. There was a possibility of the attraction lying in his hair, for he kept it messily combed back in a fashion many young women found endearingly daring. And it might very well be his eyes -- they were the blue of the sky in December, faintly tinted with the grey of scudding snow-clouds seen from far away. But for God's sake, he played piano in a _bar_. And what was attractive about _that_ he could never quite understand.

Yet by and by, he came by enough money that he judged he could, at last, attend his college. He was about twenty-four at the time, and he judged that _that_ wasn't too long a time; he could have taken longer, and been an old man in college.

College didn't seem particularly memorable, even while he was occupied with it. Though he had a young enough face -- if one could put aside the obvious imperfections -- he seemed far older than his companions at school. And he felt older.

He graduated at the top of his class, getting by with what little sleep he could get. He had switched to night hours so as not to interfere with his classes, and the other man put up with this as well as he could, allowing him use of some blankets and the floor.

Before he graduated, though, there were exams, and those were what got him out of the apartment and the bar with the piano. Because most of the students had some kind of decent job to go to anyway, and didn't really care about them.

But Joachim? He cared, and he still loved the atoms as he had when he had discovered them.

And so, after the tests had been taken, his diploma new and curled up in his hollowed book for safekeeping, a telegram came from the Laboratories, requesting his presence.

He arrived when he ought to have been sleeping, twenty-eight or so and looking like a tired, misused eighteen-year-old. They told him that he had scored exceptionally high in Physics on the tests, and that there happened to be an opening in that field for a student. Would he care to take on such a job?

He was ready to almost decline, and return to the bar to build up his stores of money, when they offered payment for the work, which essentially entailed gofering for an actual scientist. Had he still been fresh from his home town, he would have resented this and turned away. But he had already broken his nose and slashed his face open in this city, and he supposed that any job would be better than one which led to that sort of thing. So of course he said yes, and he never really looked back. And he started to forget the stories written in his hands; it was easier to not think of his childhood, to pretend that his life had begun playing the piano in a bar.

But they are still his hands, and they are still marked by his life.

- - -

Max is very cold. Very, very cold. He isn't sure quite why; it doesn't seem particularly chilly outside. But then again, he isn't outside. He's in here.

He knows this isn't Greenhame, cannot be Greenhame; Greenhame smells pleasant and country-ish. This place smells medicinal and cold. It is not Greenhame.

His eyes are open; the ceiling is very white, not boards like at Greenhame. There is something steel-coloured and shiny in his peripheral vision; he cannot turn his head to see it. He cannot move his hands to pick it up, either; his feet will not obey him either. He determines it must be some sort of nightmare.

A woman in white clothing appears and gives him a pill. He asks her where he is and she says nothing. He repeats the question in Spanish, French, fractured Latin, German, and receives no answer. He wonders if she is a mute, or deaf.

He stares at the ceiling for a while longer, growing steadily more uneasy about what is going on, before he decides to collect all the facts he is certain of.

His name is Max. For Maximilien; he remembers this because it was the name of someone who is dead now. Max. He is Max. He goes to school at a place called Greenhame; he is a sophomore at the high school. Something has happened, and that is why he is here now. He can't remember what he has done, though.

Max remembers someone saying, "Behold, a pale horse . . . and his name that sat on him was Death." And that was familiar.

_Max_, he thinks,_ my name is Max. I am from the Outlands. There is a horse there. Her name is Ro -- Ro . . . _

"Rosie," he whispers. "Her name is Rosie."

The image falls into his head: his first sight of her, when he was young. Rosie is white.

"Am I Death?" he says aloud, and the nurse says shh.

_Max_, he thinks, holding the thought like a talisman. _My name is Max_.

Max? Death?

This is what the voice says.

_Sombra,_ he thinks, and when he wakes it's dark again.

The moonlight pours a silver cup across the ceiling; he's near a window. _Where is this_? he wonders. Suddenly the ceiling doesn't look like a frosted cake, and he closes his eyes, wanting to pull the covers up to his chin so he can deny it.

You're not at home anymore, Max.

He tries to shut his eyes tighter, to make the darkness swallow everything up, but flowers of light blossom on his eyelids, pushing the darkness away. But it's not like the Halloween bonfires that show that there's nothing to fear . . . it's a torch pushed into the rotting thousand-year darkness of a crypt where monsters lurk. He doesn't want to see what's in the dark. He doesn't think anyone would want to.

I'm still here, Max.

"No," he says. "You're not real. You're just in my head."

No. I'm right here.

A hand touches his arm, and Max screams, fully believing that he has seconds to live. He opens his eyes, but that face isn't there.

It's just one of the nurses, and the sun is coming up.

But it's still so cold.


	27. Chapter Nine, parts III, IV

Lunch was a very strange affair in the Swift household, Molly found. It was nothing like lunch had been at home, in Twelve Oaks' kitchen at the long table with all the rest of Miss Tanith's girls, hushedly loud and cheerful. Nor was it again like lunch at Greenhame, a snatched affair largely of silence or talk shot between the other girls. At Greenhame, Molly had ceased to be "one of the girls". She had become the strange new girl from Miss Tanith's place in the country, to be educated and smiled at, a simple country girl.

Both of those were ladies' lunches, though. Lunch at the Swift table was not a ladies' affair. It was very much more of a man's affair, lunch there.

- - -

I was seventeen.

My father had sent me with a letter to one of his friends in the Christian ghetto. I knew that they had chosen to sequester themselves there almost two hundred years ago, believing that the end prophesied by Revelations was nearing. I knew that they kept watch for any mutant who dared pass within -- very few mutants were allowed to walk through their gates, my father being one of them.

Yet I had passed the fearful stage of childhood, and I understood that they knew I was my father's son. I was permitted.

When I walked up to the gates, I didn't even have to knock. They swung silently open, as if manned by ghosts. I went forward, into their part of the city.

What you have to understand is that the ghetto was not spectacularly separated, like the ones that used to exist in old Europe. There were walls, yes, but only as a nod to convention; anyone accidentally wandering into their haven would have known instantly where they were. The stares were enough.

My father had told me that he would have posted the letter as normal, but it had to be delivered within the day, and the post was notoriously fallible. So he sent me. He made a mistake there.

In I walked, into the separated city. I held my spine straight, remembering what my father had told me: _Be proud of what you are_. I could almost feel their gazes trailing across me, examining me inch by inch. 'Who is that boy?' they seemed to say by their silence. 'Who is that boy with the dark hair, dressed all in black? Who is he?' Trailing over me, like slime, clinging.

My father's friend was a fairly prominent member of the community, and he made his home only a little way from the church, so it was a matter of almost no time at all to find him and deliver the letter. It was walking back out that was the problem. I could feel their eyes on me -- a physical pressure weighing me down. Oh, God, how I longed to take to the sky. But I couldn't -- though they sensed that I was fundamentally _different_ from them, they didn't know the nature of my difference. And were I to reveal my status as a mutant to them . . . some were like my father's friend, good men like any other, but others were animals wearing human costume, eager to rip any stranger who seemed to put them at risk to shreds.

I had almost reached the gate when I found myself sprawled awkwardly on the cement. I still do not know how I came to that position, but I assume it was because the man straddling me had tackled me.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed in my ear. "Filthy mutant." He put a knife to my throat.

"Stop that," I said as reasonably as I could manage. "I was delivering a letter to Stephen. Stephen Landau. The lawyer. My father sent me."

"I don't care about what your _father_ said, you worthless brat," he said. "Is it the women?" He leaned closer to me. "Or does your taste fall to men?" A roar of laughter must have gone up, but I didn't hear it. That was the ultimate insult. In response I writhed, flipped over on my back, and swung a fist at his nose.

He leapt lithely back, laughing. "Is that the best you can do, freak-boy?"

I sprang to my feet, unthinking with rage. I wanted to kill him. I wanted him dead.

"What's this?" said a voice. The man swung his knife at me, teasingly. I growled -- or as near as I could manage, a low, animal sound in my throat.

"What's this?" repeated the voice. The knife slipped close to my arm, and when I turned to avoid it, the man caught me up in a bear hug, imprisoning my arms.

"Stop that," said the voice, imperiously, and I looked up through the fringe of hair that had fallen over my eyes. It was a man of the type so often drawn to government -- obviously rich, running to fat, somewhere in the range between forty and sixty, well-dressed. "I'll call the police, Laszlo. I will. Mark my words."

Was Laszlo the name of my assailant? I think I shall never know, because that was when the gunshot went off and my life as I had known it ended.

The fat, governmental man fell to the street, and I gaped at his body. Why was he dead? I saw the blood flowing, and I thought I understood.

There was a blur after that; I think I remember snapping bones, and I think they were mine -- it is the best way to explain why I woke, later, and it hurt to breathe. I am certain I remember a knife, and blood running down inside my shirt, staining the fabric.

I remember the gun shoved rudely into my hand, my fingers made to curl around it, and then running footsteps, followed by blessed peace and darkness. Sleep.

The next thing I remember is waking up on a train, lying in a bunk. Someone had wrapped his hand around my wrist, presumably taking my pulse. I opened my eyes.

"Well, that's one question answered," said a vaguely familiar voice.

I blinked until the vague image resolved into a clearer picture; a man in his twenties or thirties, dressed in the shabby remains of once-lovely clothes, long hair hanging lankly about his face, which was of a common type: somewhat thin lips, long, once-straight nose that appeared to have been broken, skin that was clear for the most part, but scarred with the remains of acne.

He stuck out his right hand for me to shake, and I weakly raised my own, stretching it across my torso to shake his hand.

"You're in a bit of a bad way," he said, retreating to his bunk and sitting down. "Not as bad as I was; few broken ribs, some nice knife wounds, bruises, scrapes. You'll be fine in a bit."

"Where are we going?" I croaked; my voice felt disused.

"West," he answered curtly.

"How long was I asleep?" I asked.

"Well, actually you've been out cold only for a little while. You remember your trial?"

"Trial?" I said dumbly.

"Hmm, that's a no, then," he said. "Well, it's a guilty verdict. You fainted, and I had to drag you into the taxi."

"Taxi?"

"Well, to get on the train, of course." His expression softened a bit. "I'm sorry. We haven't properly been introduced, have we? Name's Nathaniel Hockley."

"Pleasure," I said. "William."

"Will for short, I imagine?" said Nathaniel. "Or are you a Bill?"

"Will, if you like," I said.

"You didn't look like a Bill," he said absently. "Well. I suppose you'll like to know where we're going and what I'm doing."

I nodded.

"Since you were found guilty of the murder of a member of Parliament, you were sentenced to death. However, your father's excellent reputation, as well as your being underage, caused it to be toned down to -- well, in the old days, it'd be banishment."

"_Alaska_?" I gasped. It was the worst place one could be sent, and by all accounts a horrible place.

"Yes." He saw the expression on my face, and laughed. "It's not so terrible -- I think you're for one of the warmer places. Not so bad." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I got caught doing something I shouldn't have been, couldn't call in any favors, but the judge thought I had a pretty face and decided to put me up Alaska instead."

He must have read the confusion off my face, because he sighed and pulled his hair back into a rough ponytail. "Now do you recognize me?"

I did. With his hair up, he looked excruciatingly familiar. I couldn't have put a name to him if I tried, though.

He brought his hand back down and clasped it around the other one in his lap.

I didn't see myself in a mirror until later that day, when Nathaniel dragged me out of my bunk and propped me in front of the one inside the closet door. "Thought you ought to have a look at yourself," he said.

I looked at myself. It wasn't exactly a pretty sight, nor was it yet a familiar one.

The lines of my face seemed to have changed; I had always thought of myself as having an average face, rather too broad at the cheekbones. Now it seemed thinner; the flesh seemed to have gone from it, leaving the bones outlined. They were not too clearly defined, but the lines of my face were far more visible than they had been.

My hair was not yet as lanky and ill-kempt as Nathaniel's; I had, though, been in the habit of wearing it long, and it hung around my face rather too limply for my liking. Anxiously, I inspected the roots -- what ones I could see. Nathaniel laughed and told me that hair turning white after a shock was an old wives' tale anyway. (It wasn't.)

I stared intently into the mirror. I wanted to unbutton my shirt and shed it, inspect the damage Nathaniel had informed me had been inflicted, but I didn't dare until I had some space to myself. Instead, I examined my face; not even a blacked eye to show. Good or not; I felt tired suddenly, struck by the realization that, while I was on a train going _somewhere_ for the first time in my life, the train was going to take me to Alaska.

I don't exactly remember the rest of the time on the train; I think there were bad dreams, because I remember someone asking me if I'd shut my mouth, some of us would rather sleep than listen to _that_. And I remember there being blood, although I think that was later, on the ship.

The train must have stopped at some point; I think I remember being carried to a carriage, and then bumping through the streets of some former port town, now doing a meager business in prisoners bound north. Then the ship, and the smell of the sea -- practically no one in the capitol had ever been to the sea, and it smelled peculiar, as if I'd stuck my face in the salt cellar.

I remember very little of the ship, too. It was a long time, and it was cold, but other than that I don't remember terribly much. I think I must have been sick at the time; feverish perhaps. It's all terribly confused.

I remember waking up with blood soaking through the bandages, and being confused as to where it could possibly be coming from; Nathaniel cursing me for a fool and ripping an old shirt into bits, complaining that there wouldn't be a real doctor until Alaska; more bad dreams, and screaming in the night; my hair beginning to grow out white, and being so thankful that it wasn't the whole of my head, I'd look worse than I did, just the one streak -- forelock, really -- made me look dashing; quietly vomiting overboard; and wondering where everyone else was, then realizing something before everything faded away.

Then I remember very clearly approaching Alaska, and Nathaniel telling me:

"I wanted to wait until we were almost there to tell you how long you're up for. You want to know?"

"Yes," I said.

"Well, it's not as bad as it could be." He paused, cleared his throat. "Ten years."

"_Ten years_!" Mustering all the fury I could (which wasn't much). "I'll be twenty-six!"

Nathaniel laughed in that peculiar scornful way I absolutely hated. "Yeah? Lots of people wish they could see twenty-six again."

"I -- I might not," I flustered. "I might not live to _see_ twenty-six!"

He rolled his eyes. "Look, most of what you ever heard about the place was a lie. It's more like a ten-year vacation. Who knows, you might get to finish your schooling?"

I sulked momentarily, then ventured:

"Well, have you ever _been_ to Alaska before?"

He laughed; this time a lighter sound. "Oh, hell no. Got a bad dash of luck this time around. Before _this_, I used to be a fine, upstanding member of society."

"I'll believe that when I see it," I muttered as darkly as I could.

He leapt up from his chair. "You listen!" He produced his shaving razor from his pocket -- I haven't a clue why, but he insisted on carrying the silly thing around with him -- and snapped it open, advancing on me. "Why, I was studying to be a doctor when I got caught, and if I hadn't have been stupid you'd call me Doctor Hockley now!"

By this time I had backed up against the wall of the little cabin, and he was brandishing the razor before him threateningly, as if he meant to cut my throat.

"Don't," I said. "Don't do it, Nathaniel."

He inhaled with a hissing noise, his teeth tightly clenched. "You know what I got caught at?" he inquired, voice almost sweet. "Murder." He flicked at the razor with his thumb. "Just because some damn idiot got it into his head to go around raising the dead, _I'm_ not allowed to practice my _anatomy--_"

I wasn't sure precisely what to say, or if there _was_ anything to say. So I said nothing, which very well might have led to my demise had a knock not sounded on the door that instant.

In the days that followed until we came to Alaska proper, Nathaniel and I kept away from each other as much as was prudent. I understood his plight (well, somewhat); I'd heard the rumors like everyone else. About bodies stolen from graveyeards, the result of which was not undead, patched-together monstrosities staggering about the city, but a paranoia, and a crackdown on use of dead bodies, even to students of medicine.

I understood even less his complaint of having been stupid; I now realize that he must have _stolen the dead body of some recently deceased person who had probably perished by Nathaniel's hand_ and practiced his anatomy upon it. But then I thought I understood for different reasons:

I, too, had been unlucky. By chance, I had happened to be in the ghetto at the same time as a member of Parliament, and during a singularly awkward time of the year. Of course it was always an awkward place to be, the ghetto, but it was a tense time then.

So it was merely unhappy chance that I had found myself in the neighborhood when Christian tempers snapped and a member of Parliament found himself dead. I learned later that the story had been presented so:

A young man (myself) of late high-school age enters the ghetto. He walks a short distance into the ghetto, then begins to make his way out. Once he is near the gate, he encounters a member of Parliament. The young man -- who has been acting unusually jittery all his time in the ghetto -- produces a gun and shoots the man, fatally. The valiant Christians in the homes surrounding hear the shot and rush out in time to restrain the aggressor. Unfortunately, he struggles so much against their efforts that they cannot help but to inflict damage upon his person.

I would often wonder, later, usually as I stood before the mirror, often twining the white streak in my hair between my fingers, why this could happen. That a schoolboy of seventeen -- whose only previous infraction against society was a fistfight he had taken part in when he was fourteen -- could be sent to Alaska (which was a grievous punishment in those days) merely based on the testimony of biased witnesses seemed preposterous to me, especially when I was the schoolboy.

Alaska was not as bad as I had feared it to be at first. I attracted interest (and curried some favor) because I was an innocent young man, polite and well-mannered, who seemed on the whole more as if he ought to be a schoolmaster sent up from the capitol to staff some school up there than a murderer.

There were families there, as well, which astonished me at first. Nathaniel had informally appointed himself my guardian during my first weeks there, and he informed me that sometimes the criminals were granted the ability to send for their wives and children, and that a precious few were actually pioneering families, come north to seek their fortunes.

I met quite a few interesting people in my first months there. Among the few pioneers were such oddities as a history teacher, frustrated by the lukewarm climate in his hometown and determined to do something notable, a former adventurer and soldier who craved a "nice place to spend my old age", and, oddly enough, someone whom I recognized.

Of course he was no one my own age; he had been a teaching student when I was younger, and taught a semester of one of my classes. He was amazed that I still remembered his face. I asked what had brought him to Alaska.

"Oh, you know," he said, gesturing widely to the horizon. "Craved adventure, the capitol was too cramped, that sort of thing." He lowered his voice. "Well, really I found them all terribly boring. I've come up here to teach -- there's a little town a bit farther north that said they needed a schoolmaster. Their last one got eaten or something. Whales, or maybe that was a joke.

"Anyway," he said, eyes shifting to his watch as he took it from his pocket. "Shite. I've got a train to catch. I suppose we'll meet up again, Will?"

I nodded. "I suppose." Of course I had no such intention. Like the early revolutionaries you have no doubt heard of, the injustice perpetrated against me had planted seeds of mistrust in the system in my breast. I did not crave the success of a new order, a more just order. I craved vengeance for myself. A new order was second to that.


	28. Chapter Nine, part V

Thomas -- who was the old man's ward, as it turned out -- told Molly over lunch that he had come into Mr. Swift's care (for Mr. Swift was the old man's name -- his first name was Ignatius) under similar circumstances to Molly's own.

"It was the cholera," he said simply. "Me mum got the cholera, then me dad and me sisters did too." He shook his head. "'Twas a bad year for cholera." He indicated Mr. Swift, who sat some distance away from the pair, with his eyes. "Mr. Swift 'appened to be in the neighborhood at the time, and 'e said 'e'd take me in."

"Why would he do that?" said Molly.

Thomas shrugged. "'Is son died of the cholera too. Except it was a couple years before then. So I guess 'e needed someone to will 'is estate to."

"But why you, Thomas?" said Molly.

"Call me Tommy," he said, with a curiously sudden affectation of adult manners. "'E said 'e used to be a street kid when 'e was about my age, and 'e felt like 'e should at least try to 'elp one of us out."

"Are there a lot of street kids?" Molly asked, fairly oblivious of the situation -- after all, might I remind you, she'd been a country girl until earlier that year, and she'd seen little enough of the city.

"You're kidding, right?" said Tommy.

Molly shook her head no.

He sighed. "Master Swift can do a better job of explaining than I can. Ask 'im later."

Molly wanted to say something, but she wasn't sure quite what it was, so she said, in the end, nothing at all.

Tommy looked at her -- watched her, really. Like some kind of bird of prey looking at a mouse, or a smaller bird, maybe.

Just then, breaking the tension as if he _knew_ there was a pause open, Mr. Swift interrupted.

"Molly, come here," he said.

"All right, sir," said Molly, dutifully.

She went over to where he was sitting, in an armchair in his study just off the hall. He held a newspaper in his hands, but it was an old one by the look of it -- yellow, delicate, it reminded Molly of lace.

"Where should I sit, sir?" she said.

He put the newspaper down, looking at her with his kind, filmy blue eyes. "Anywhere, anywhere is fine," he said, a note of false cheeriness in his voice.

"What do you need me for, sir?" Molly asked, after she had sat down on an ottoman that was, more or less, the right size for her. She was reminded of Goldilocks, who went looking for things that were exactly right for her.

"I just wanted to ask you some questions," he said, then added:

"And you can stop calling me sir. It's terribly stuffy."

"What should I call you, then?"

Some expression of emotion flitted over his face, and his lips parted a little, as if he were about to speak, but he said nothing. Molly thought it a little odd, but then again, she thought many things a little odd.

"Nothing in particular," he said finally. "We'll figure that out later."

She sat quietly for a moment as he folded the newspaper and set it down beside him on the side-table.

"Now, Molly," he said kindly, and suddenly he reminded her of her grandfather, whom she hadn't been related to herself, but who was Miss Tanith's father instead, and so everyone called him grandfather, as a way to show him respect. Or some such thing.

"Molly, would you mind telling me some things about yourself?"

Molly shook her head, then said, "No, I wouldn't mind."

Mr. Swift nodded. "Good. I won't ask anything too strange."

He harrumphed, rubbed his forehead with one hand, and settled his rug about his knees before he went on.

"Could you tell me your name?"

"Molly," she said instantly.

He laughed, sounding tired -- but then again, he was old, she supposed, and by the time you were as old as he was, life would get pretty tiring. "No, your full name."

"Well, my mum said we were called . . . " Molly frowned. It wasn't that she couldn't remember, more that she hadn't thought of her mum in so long. She'd sworn to never forget her mum, and now it seemed like she almost had. It was a bit scary. "She said that my da's name was David Free, so . . . so I'd be Molly Free, wouldn't I?"

"Yes," said Mr. Swift.

"And my mum said that my real name is Mary, after the lady who gave birth to Jesus, except she only ever called me Molly, because she said that Mary was a name that's hard to live up to." Molly blinked and looked at him. She hadn't intended to say that much in one sitting. Really she hadn't.

"So your name -- your full, legal name -- is Mary Free, daughter of David."

Molly nodded. "Yes."

Mr. Swift rubbed at his eyes with one hand. "And how old are you?"

Molly considered for a moment. "Ten. I think so, anyway." She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember. "Yes. Ten."

He nodded, patiently. "Can you tell me what year you were born?"

"One eighty-eight," she said. "Or it could be eighty-seven, I'm not really sure. Except right now it's year one ninety-eight, and since I'm ten, that would mean I was born in one eighty-eight."

Mr. Swift looked surprised, for some reason. "Molly," he said. "Have you ever had any sort of education?"

She shook her head from side to side. "No, sir." She thought for a moment, then added, "But I can sew real good."

Mr. Swift laughed. "Never mind sewing, Molly; any girl can sew. I want to know if you've ever gone to school."

"No," she said. "We weren't supposed to go, and anyway there was always work for us to do, so we didn't have any time to waste at school when we ought to be helping around the house."

"Where was the house?" Mr. Swift asked.

"It's west of the capitol," Molly said, "because you've got to take a train going east to get here. And it's across the mountains, because we went through them on our way -- it's almost by the ocean, too, it's in a lovely green valley where you can't see other houses for miles and miles around." She paused. "But I guess we had neighbors, because Miss Tanith used to go and visit them every once in a while."

"You _had_ neighbors?"

"Yes," Molly said, a little irritably. "Because now Miss Tanith's dead, and that means that I won't be living there anymore, and the whole estate is going to get sold to someone else. So there'll still be neighbors to that house, but they won't be _our_ neighbors because there won't be a we anymore."

"I'm sorry, Molly," said Mr. Swift, quietly. "But you're not going to go back to that house, or to the orphanage, or a workhouse, or anything like that. Miss Tanith was a friend of mine, and any friend of hers is a friend of mine." He leaned closer to Molly, and she could see the color of his eyes very clearly, even in the dim parlor: they were cloudy, blue, and they looked like they were looking at some other world.

"Molly, I take care of my friends," he said. "From now on, you'll be living in this house. And, like Thomas, I'm going to treat you like you were family of mine, because I'm old, Molly, I'm very, very old, and like any old man, I don't have any family left."

He sighed and leaned back in his chair; he even laughed softly. "I'm sorry. That didn't make much sense, did it? Let me say it again, and hopefully it will make more sense the second time -- as they say, soup is better the second day.

"Miss Tanith and I were close friends. Taking you in as my daughter is a way for me to thank Miss Tanith for all that she did for me in the past. And besides, I could use some company. You saw this house from the street -- how big it is. I've got it all to myself now. It used to be there were other people living here, but now they're all gone."

He sighed and rubbed his eyes again. "Forgive me, please. I tend to ramble, now. Tommy will find you a room to sleep in tonight."

With that, he made a motion with his hand -- one Molly understood to mean "Leave, please". And she did leave. She hadn't really understood what he was saying, but she knew that it was important to sound as if she had been listening the whole time.

So she left.


	29. Chapter Ten, part I

Chapter Ten: When The Time is Right

It took me a relatively long time to get where I was destined to be. Because I was "in delicate health", which was a fancy phrase for "you're broken, and no one thinks you should be here anyway", I was, essentially, on a ten-year-long rest cure while I was in Alaska.

I was under observation, of course, because I was young and in good physical health, but this mostly entailed once-monthly visits to a man who didn't care, which eventually trailed off. I didn't go one morning, and nothing happened. So I never went again.

I wandered for a while. There was nowhere in particular I could go, and anyway escape was a hopeless prospect -- where would you go? No one really cared if you tried to get out, because you would never be able to get back to civilization.

It wasn't a lonely place, surprisingly. It was a place, deserted like so much of the Outlands, where I had visited on holidays as a child -- a little villa owned by my mother, who, from some half-remembered wisp of information, called it our _dacha_. Our summer-house.

I whiled away the time, aimlessly. I had a room, provided for me by those who had imprisoned me there, in a "convicts' hotel" at the main port. But I hardly ever visited there, and it was, in fact, a source of my meager income -- I rented it out to a middle-aged man, an artist of some sort, who was painting a series of works based on that godforsaken country. I didn't mind. He paid well, and he asked me no questions.

Mostly I wandered, until I at last came upon a little town that struck my fancy. I was eighteen or so, bored, feeling older than my years -- looking older, too. I got no trouble for my age, no matter where I went.

I found my old acquaintance there, living in a small apartment near the train station, working periodically on what he claimed was a novel -- he was up at all hours, at turns hammering away on an ancient monstrosity of a typewriter and scratching on endless supplies of recycled paper with a badly-kept pen that looked like a prop out of a school play.

He fit the popular image of a desperate, struggling artist well -- trying to stay within the parameters of what he could publish and be paid for, while still trying to sustain his "artistic vision", as he called it. He wouldn't drink coffee, because he could never abide the stuff, but I often found him, when I got out of bed in the morning, still hunched over his manuscript, shuffling through pages, with a cup of tea close at hand.

It was a little odd that, given the environment and companion I was, I did not take refuge in subversive activities earlier. Nor did I sink into depression, or take up a hobby, or any such thing. I wandered, for weeks at a time sometimes, walking through the countryside, looking at what was there to be looked at, thinking my own thoughts, falling into old patterns of solitude and consideration of the world.

It was not a lonely pastime as it seems. I was, if not happy, at least content during my long walks -- occasionally I would run across another inhabitant, and I would feign that I did not understand his language. We would pass by in mutual misunderstanding.

I remember the sun in particular; the "white nights" when it was light long past midnight, the long darks of winter. I had time, and nothing but it, to see what lay all around me: the beautiful tundra, laid out before me like an offering.

After such weeks of wandering I would, eventually, need to return to the apartment, and this I would do, with a certain reluctance. While in the country, I slept when I was tired, not particularly at night or in the afternoon; it was difficult for me to adjust to the sleep patterns of the city, the patterns kept by other people.

I began to keep a journal, reserved for the times when I had just returned from the wilderness; I could not often sleep at night, and so I would take my journal and a pencil to a place in the hall where the light from my companion's all-night marathons leaked out of his room. I would write until I felt tired, and then I would return and lie down to rest.

I still have my journal -- those two slim volumes, so strange to read now. I was so naïve, even then -- if one can say a convict is naïve. I was only a boy, yes, but I was a boy who was older than he should have been -- an innocent brought all too soon to full realization of what exactly the world around him was composed of, of how that world worked, the cogs that drove its machinations, the men that worked in that vast factory of oppression we called our government.

It was one night, shortly after I had come home again, when I was sitting in the hall as was my custom. I had chosen to sit against a corner of the wall this time, though still sitting on the floor; the shadows would have hid me very well from any observer.

My acquaintance was, as usual, engaged in one of his all-night writing sessions, drinking tea like it was his job. I was accustomed to him, and he was accustomed to me.

That night, however, two men I did not know came knocking at his door.

"Petrov!" one of them said, hammering on the door. "Open up, we know you're awake!"

Petrov -- as his name must have been, or else it was a nickname -- cracked the door open a little, and hissed something at the two strangers. From what I could make out, he asked them what they were doing there, and then for some sort of passcode, perhaps.

"Because proper tea is theft, you bastard!" said one of the strangers, affectionately despite his words. "Now let us in."

"Ugh," said Petrov by way of an answer, and instead opened the door and stood in the doorway. "I don't think you ought to, it's a mess and there are dirty teacups everywhere."

"Oh, it's not like we haven't seen worse," said the same stranger. "Go on, we don't mind."

"Idiot," said the other stranger. "Dear Petrov hates to be caught in a mess."

"You should have called ahead; I could have cleaned up a little," said Petrov.

The first stranger snorted. "You know we don't care."

"Well, all right," said Petrov, sounding a bit regretful. "But I've got a roommate, so we'll have to be quiet."

"You never told us about him before," said the first stranger.

"No, I didn't," said Petrov.

"Why not?" said the first stranger. "He could be working for the government, you know."

"Because," said Petrov in a low voice, "he's eighteen, he was sent here as a prisoner, and he likes to leave for god-knows-where and stay out for weeks at a time." I knew that Petrov spread his arms next; it was a characteristic gesture of his. "See, he's no threat."

"Well, that's good," observed the second stranger, indicating me with a flick of his head, "because he's sitting in the corner and he's heard everything we've said."

"What?" I said. I hadn't even been pretending to scribble in my journal; even if I'd been oblivious enough to manage that, the strangers and Petrov would have blocked my light.

The first stranger drew a knife, and the second stranger grabbed him by the wrist, keeping him back from me. Petrov stepped out of the doorway, towards me. I stood up. It was the only reaction that made sense.

Petrov looked at me, and I looked at Petrov. I was still holding my notebook; it dangled open in my hand. He looked wide-eyed, more awake than he had any right to be.

"What do we do?" Petrov asked, turning away from me to look at the strangers, who were still in the strange postures they'd assumed when the first stranger had pulled a knife.

The second stranger released the wrist of the first and stepped toward me, fixing me in a peculiar gaze, like none I had ever encountered, or any I have since encountered, save one. It was an intense gaze. I felt like a butterfly on a pin.

"Tell me about yourself."

"For whose database?" I asked.

The first stranger relaxed and put away his knife; the second stranger smiled.

"I'll bet you're wondering exactly what you've just said: who we are and why we're here," he said to me, putting his arm around my shoulders.

"I guess we can tell him," muttered the first stranger, turning away and looking toward the stairs. "After all, who's he going to tell?"

Petrov grumbled and went back into his room. "I'll make tea, then."

So I sat in Petrov's little room, talking to strangers over endless cups of strong black tea as the night slowly lightened into dawn.

The second stranger introduced himself as Vladimir, and the first as Joseph. They were of Russian descent, though their ancestors had been more recent immigrants than Petrov's family.

Vladimir asked me, at some point in that long night, whether I really did support the revolution.

I knew it was a turning point in my life. If I demurred, then I was still only a teenage murderer -- which was practically venial as far as the government cared. I would be forgettable.

But if I agreed, I would be betraying my country, which seemed now like a faraway place though I still lived within it. Most importantly, I was convinced I might have a chance at fame. And I was eighteen, one must remember. I wanted my name to be remembered for all time.

"Of course," I said, "of course. Why shouldn't I? The only thing is," I added in a lower tone, "I thought I might be the only one with such leanings."

Joseph raised his eyebrows briefly. Vladimir laughed. "Really?" he asked. "You really thought you were the only one? You really did." He smiled. "Boy, you're in for a surprise."

At sunrise, Vladimir and Joseph finally decided to return to their own lodgings. They said their goodbyes, finished their cups of tea (Vladimir, surprisingly active for such a quiet, good-natured man, had gone through ten or so), and as he was turning to leave, Vladimir spoke to me.

"I've forgotten to ask your name," he said.

"William," I said, still defiant as a schoolboy.

He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. "Good name. It's an honest one. Perhaps you'd better choose a different one. You never know when they'll come in handy."

And so I struggled off to bed, trying to get some sleep. My efforts bore fruit, more or less, and I lay, dead to the world, until late afternoon, when I finally dragged myself out of bed and dressed.

Being that I, like so many young men in my position, had very little money to my name, which I preferred to keep for my share of the rent, food, and such, I didn't own much as far as clothes went. The only things I owned that were somewhat new were a waistcoat, shirt and tie, which were all growing shabby by now, given that they had been gifts to me of a sort -- I had discovered them in my suitcase while on the ship, and decided to keep them, as they fit me rather well. I owned two pairs of trousers, a decent, though shabby, shirt and jacket, a pair of sturdy, dependable boots, and an old, much-repaired overcoat which was probably more patches than original fabric by then. I had bought it secondhand, but it was, at least, a warm coat, which was all I was concerned with. I didn't own a hat and didn't really care for one; hardly anyone else wore them up there, anyway, so why waste my money on something I would never wear?

Taken all together, even dressed in my nicest clothes, I was a ragged, shabby-looking teenager, making somewhat of an effort to look presentable, but still coming off as a mess. In other words, transported back to the capitol I would be one of a thousand other poor students; here, I was one of a thousand forgettable young men. I was invisible.

Vladimir called on us later that day; I heard him through the wall, talking to Petrov. I was dressed, for the most part, only without shoes and coat.

After a moment's discussion with my acquaintance, Vladimir popped his head through the door into my room. "Will," he said, "how would you like to come to coffee with me?"

Coffee was a sort of ritual in Alaska; a social occasion, much like afternoon tea or a social dinner in the capitol. Coffee was, however, much more informal; fancy dress was not required, and as it was immensely far from any normal civilization, no one much cared how you came to coffee, even if you were drunk. And, of course, unlike tea or dinner, the time didn't matter: any time you were in a coffeehouse, from dawn to the small hours of the morning, someone was probably at coffee.

"All right," I said.

I got my boots on, as well as my coat, and we set off.

The coffeehouse we ended up at was not far from where Petrov and I were staying, yet Vladimir took a bizarrely circuitous route to it. Later I understood that caution had become a habit with him; later I developed the same habit.

At the coffeehouse, the latest newspaper from the capitol had gotten into someone's hands, and it was being passed around. It was, of course, three weeks late, but it was news enough for us, even coming as late as it did.

Vladimir threaded his way to the back of the coffeehouse, where he vanished through the door of one of the semi-private rooms. He reappeared moments later, and told me it was all right for me to come in.

I walked in, and at first it seemed no different from any other room full of people at coffee. Six or seven men were gathered around a table, on which cups of coffee were sitting, with the jug of coffee off to one side so that it would not be accidentally spilled by an errant elbow. They had fallen silent, I felt, just after Vladimir came in. Oddly, they ranged in age from a boy who looked just younger than me to a man who appeared in his middle fifties or so, with salt-and-pepper hair.

"Hello," said Vladimir to the table at large, and they all turned to look at me. He took a chair, while I remained standing, feeling quite the horse's ass.

The middle-aged man rose first to shake my hand, saying, "So Vladimir brought you, didn't he?" Then he addressed himself to Vladimir, saying, "You've got to stop corrupting the young, my boy!" There was laughter at that comment, and the atmosphere eased a little. The man introduced himself to me as Sam, and I gave my name as Yuri.

A man whose age I judged at about thirty or so approached me next; when I extended my hand to shake, he clapped it in both of his and shook it vigorously. "It's good to meet you," he said. "Always good to have fresh blood here."

The new faces all blurred as I was introduced to everyone, until finally the boy rose to shake my hand. He looked thin, almost consumptive, and I shook his hand gingerly. "My name is Yuri," I said tentatively.

"Of course," he said, and suddenly I realized that he wasn't a boy at all, but a young woman of twenty-five. "The name's Anna," she informed me, and I saw Vladimir smile faintly.

"Good to meet you, Anna," I said, feeling somewhat faint.

"And you," she said generously.

I took an empty chair at the table after taking a cup of coffee from the jug. Conversation eventually began, and I listened; it was a skill I had developed at school, to listen silently, and now I cherished it.

Eventually, though, the man sitting next to me turned to me, and I knew that this must be the moment of truth.

"So, Yuri," he said. "Tell me about yourself."

"Well," I began, "I'm eighteen, and I was sent up here after being accused of murder."

"Who did they think you killed?" one of the other men interrupted.

"A man of some position in the government," I answered, choosing my words carefully. "He was . . . a member of Parliament, I think."

"And did you actually kill him?" asked the same man.

"Er . . . no, I didn't," I said, and I felt anger beginning to build in my heart. "I was falsely accused because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Sam snorted. I tried to pay him no attention.

"Ah-h-h-h," breathed my questioner, and turned to Vladimir. "So that's why you've brought him to us, Vladimir; you've found us another sympathizer to our cause."

Anna laughed. "Of course that's why, Adam," she said. "Did you think Vladimir was bringing us someone else, for any other reason?"

Vladimir flushed bright red. Anna patted him on the shoulder. "Oh, don't worry, Vladimir, we still have only the highest of opinions of you."

I was afraid; I don't mind admitting that, because I was afraid for my life then. I suspected I might be just moments from death.

And yet, it was Adam who broke that tension.

He handed me a copy of a book I hadn't known existed; a book that, by all rights, should not have existed. It was battered, worn, rebound clumsily with tape in cardboard covers; it was more than a book, it was a symbol of the revolutionary movement.

I opened it to the first page. There was no title; it began on the first page of the first chapter, which was titled "Struggle of the Proletariat".

He nodded at me once I looked up from it. "It's samizdat. You don't have to return it. Just remember to hide it."

I nodded in return, and put it in the inside pocket of my overcoat, where it stayed throughout the rest of the informal meeting.

Eventually, the hour grew late, and though the coffeehouses were open all hours, it was decided that the meeting would end. Vladimir, Anna, and Adam talked at length, until eventually Adam and Vladimir came to an agreement about the next meeting place -- the parlor of the rooming-house where Vladimir and Joseph were staying.

I went back to my apartment alone, taking a different route than I had come by, but one equally as circuitous as the first route.

Petrov was at work again when I knocked on his door; he shouted at me to leave him alone. Apparently he was on the verge of a breakthrough.

Once I had gotten into my room proper, I took off my overcoat and boots, laid my jacket over the back of a chair, and laid down on my bed. I put off reading the book until I woke up; this turned out to actually be a wise decision on my part.

It was a bit confusing, to say the least.

When I woke up, the room was dark; I lit a candle, reminding myself that I would soon have to go out and buy more. Gaslights were known and used in Alaska, but the gas supply was unsteady. It was safer to use candles and fires for light, or the sun.

I wiped my eyes and went over to the desk, where I sat down after taking the book out of the pocket in my overcoat where I had had it for safekeeping. I opened it again to the first page, careful in my handling of it; I was afraid I would damage the book. It didn't matter, really; it was a samizdat copy that had passed into my hands. This book was mine. The text was what I would have to pass on.

First, I intended to read it.

The book started off without even a preamble: it announced that people had always been divided into two social classes, which it called the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie, it said, were those in a position of social power, while the proletariat were the working men of society, and thus, were those with little or no actual power, though they made up the bulk of society.

I looked up from the book. Though the words were unfamiliar, I had heard them before in different language; I had read them before in a pamphlet given to me by a boy, of about college age, who must have been a member of a similar group to this.

The book continued:

It described the history of the bourgeoisie, which it characterized as a relatively recent development, beginning at the defeat of feudalism. The bourgeoisie had wrought great things, but these great things would bring the downfall of the bourgeoisie, as would their creation of the other great social class: the proletariat.

Here I looked up again. Again, I knew this story from the pamphlet I had been given, though in the pamphlet it had been simply a historical story seen through different eyes.

Almost six hundred years ago -- or longer, depending on who you asked -- we had decided that _centivos_ were not as "advanced" a race as we were. They had been put on the Earth for our use -- man would have dominion over the animals, said the Bible, and clearly they were animals because they didn't look like us -- and so we put them to use. Recently, centivo-rights movements had been organized. They weren't getting anywhere, though I wasn't surprised at this echo of a familiar situation in the book: the oppressed struggling against the oppressor.

I stopped, struck by a thought. I was in the upper class of society. I'd never realized it before, but now I realized it fully. And because of my social position, I had the opportunity to be part of a movement to awaken the centivo population to their oppression. I was young. I was educated. I was radical. And I was not centivo.

I shook it off and checked my watch. It was not quite one in the morning. I should be sleeping instead; I was still quite tired.

So I closed the book, leaving it out on my desk carelessly (who would search a poor man's room, especially when he was of a harmless type?), and went to bed.

When I woke, Petrov was pounding on my door. "Wake up, idiot!" he yelled. "There's a fire!"

I was awake almost instantly. The building was almost all wooden, and so fire was a major danger.

I threw on my jacket and overcoat, shoved my feet into my boots, and packed everything I owned into my knapsack, which was just as miserable and ragged-looking as my overcoat, if not more so. I had bought it almost new in the main port just after I arrived with the coins I had in my pocket at the time (which was not much -- back in the capitol I couldn't even have bought a drink with the sum), and promptly discovered that "almost new" meant it had been frequently repaired.

Petrov was standing out in the hall, almost frantic; this was shocking, for I had taken him for the phlegmatic type of artist, hard to rouse to any strong emotion. Evidently he was capable of high emotions, though.

He, too, had packed everything he owned in record time -- I suppose it was a skill of the almost destitute as we were. He, too, didn't own more than he could fit in a knapsack and a suitcase -- even the ridiculous typewriter was surprisingly light. He'd managed to disassemble it and pack it into the suitcase.

"Petrov," I asked after we'd gotten down the stairs and outside, "did you start the fire?"

"Why do you ask?" he said.

"Because I really don't believe you could pack everything you own that fast."

"Oh, I left the typewriter," he said.

"Oh."

I'd presumed he'd taken it with him. Now things were much more clear; other than the typewriter, he didn't own very much.

"But you brought your tea, right?"

"Of course," he said. He'd bought the stuff from a man who'd gotten a shipment in from somewhere. He'd somehow managed to get it foolishly cheap, as well; tea was more expensive than coffee. Petrov would have been noted for his apparent hedonistic tendencies had he not been stone broke. However, he was almost penniless -- a true starving artist . . . almost -- and no one cared to know if a man on the edge of poverty had tea.

"And your manuscript?" I was trying to make idle conversation. There's not much one can say while watching flames shoot out of windows.

"What do you think?" He snorted. "It was the first thing I grabbed."

That was typical of him. I suppose he was like any artist; he would do anything for his art.

"Where are you going to stay?" I asked. Never mind me. I could -- probably -- make a living in the wilderness.

"I don't know," he admitted, and we heard a crack as something inside the building gave why. "Shoddy damn building, it was heading for a condemnation anyway." He thought for a moment. "I suppose I'll . . . well, what are you going to do?"

"Oh, I guess I'll just . . . live outside of the city," I said, trying to sound careless.

"Really," he said flatly.

"I could . . . I could find a way," I protested.

"Oh, come off it, you idiot," he said. "You always come back after a month or two. Except you won't have anything to come back to."

"Shut up," I said.

"There are shelters, you know," he said thoughtfully. "You don't have to pay for a room."

"Fucking hell, man," I said, keeping my voice down as best as I could. "I'm not going to any shelter. I don't need your advice," I went on. "I'll manage, see if I don't."

And I stormed off into the morning.

Luckily, I had enough sense to remember that coffeehouses are open all night, and so instead of spending an hour or so sleeping on the side of the road, I dozed beside a cup of coffee in a coffeehouse. I woke from thin, confused dreams about an hour after I had fallen asleep, of my own volition, realizing sleepily that I ought to be moving on. I drank the rest of my coffee, long since cold, paid, and left.

I wandered the streets for a while. Normally I did little during the day; often I slept, or thought for hours on end, thoughts chasing each other in circles. I read sometimes; Petrov had owned a few old, ragged books which I had taken the liberty to borrow and read. I was adrift, lost.

And it was only now that I realized this.

After a while I wandered to a back road, where I fell asleep on a bench. I hadn't been sleeping as much as I should have been, and I took the opportunity for rest gladly.

When I woke, I remembered the next meeting I had with Vladimir and Joseph and the rest.

Then I remembered it wasn't for another week.

I groaned and threw my arm across my eyes. What was I going to do with myself for a week?

Presumably, only time would tell.


	30. Chapter Ten, parts II, III

Molly learned to cook. Before, at Twelve Oaks, she had been expected to become a seamstress. Seamstresses did not cook in a household with as many servants as Twelve Oaks; Molly would never have to cook, unless by some odd circumstance Miss Tanith were to die. Which she had. And now Molly was at a new house, which meant she had to learn to cook.

Eggs were hard at first, but eventually she got use to them after she figured out all the different tricks they would play on her. And after eggs, most everything came easier and easier.

She didn't wonder where Mr. Swift had gotten the eggs, though he kept no chickens. She guessed that the eggs came from the market, but the strange thing was that Mr. Swift didn't send her to the market: he sent Tommy instead. She couldn't figure that one out for the life of her; it was a girl's job, or a woman's job, to go to the market.

But Molly found that she had a fondness for cooking. She liked it. It was something to do, it felt like something she ought to be doing, and besides, it was _fun_. Fun for her to play around with the recipes in the one cookbook Mr. Swift owned. Fun for her to find out what happened when she combined one ingredient with another. Molly was, after all, still a child, and she had played too few childish games in her time. It was high time she got to, at least, pretend to be a child.

She led a good life with Mr. Swift, but eventually it came time for childhood's end for Molly.

She was in the kitchen eating breakfast when Mr. Swift sent Tommy in to get her.

"Mr. Swift says to come and see him in the parlor," Tommy said.

Molly thanked him, and washed her breakfast dishes. She put them away in the cabinet and went to see Mr. Swift.

"Yes, Mr. Swift?" she said when she stepped into the parlor. (Though he didn't like being called "sir", she had found that he didn't mind being called Mr. Swift, and so she called him Mr. Swift instead of "sir".) She saw that he was fully dressed to go out.

"It's time you had an education," he said. "Now come along," he added.

She followed him, dumbly, to the door, from where he stepped out onto the walk, on which he walked briskly to the curb, where a taxicab was waiting for him -- and Molly, too, she supposed.

Mr. Swift got into the cab, with Molly following after him. "The Laboratories," he said curtly to the cab-driver.

Molly looked out the window as they drove, but she paid no attention to the city passing by; she was more concerned with where they were going, and why. She knew that the Laboratories was some kind of place where scientists worked, but why would Mr. Swift be taking her there?

The cab pulled up to the drive in front of the laboratories, where the cab-driver brought them to a stop. "Here you are," he said.

"What's that?" said Mr. Swift. Evidently he hadn't been paying much attention either.

"I said we're here," said the cab-driver irritably.

Molly got out of the cab and stood, impatient, on the drive while Mr. Swift negotiated with the cab-driver before, at last, exiting the cab.

"Well!" he said briskly. "Let's get moving."

And, taking Molly by the hand, he led her into the building.

There were so many halls and so many turns in their path down the halls that Molly quickly lost track of the way back to the door -- at least, to the door they had entered by.

"It's a huge old place, isn't it?" said Mr. Swift as pleasantly as if they were on a Sunday outing in the park, not as if Molly had not been informed where she was going or why.

"Mr. Swift," she said, after a while, "what does this place have to do with my education?"

He smiled sadly, looking down at her as they stood outside the door to yet another room. "Because there are some tests you'll have to take before we can get you into school. And they only give those tests in this building, so I had to bring you here."

Molly nodded. Of course, she still didn't understand what was going on but she had found in her experiences that it was best simply to appease the adults, no matter how strange the things they wanted her to comply with.

And when they entered the room, neither Molly nor Mr. Swift knew it, but they had changed the world. Or, at least, they had changed forever the way the future was going to look.

She didn't even know it.

- - -

I was in a whorehouse. Cathouse. House of hookers, place where one can purchase ladies of ill repute, streetwalkers, ladies of the night . . .

But the point was that I was in a whorehouse. And I didn't even know why.

I know. Ostensibly, one only visits a whorehouse to fuck. It is not making love. It is not procreation. It is fucking. Besides, they're not very clean places, as far as houses go.

Except for this one. It was, comparatively, clean and quiet and altogether, if one had happened to just wander in from the street, one needn't have even noticed it was a whorehouse -- well, but for the ladies walking about in skimpy clothes.

But I wasn't there as a customer, because I was completely broke (well, I had some money, but I swore to God I would not spend the last of my money -- well, the last until I got my money from the artist renting my room -- on a cheap whore -- if I was driven to necessities that I could not satisfy alone, I would, at least, purchase a high-class streetwalker). I was there because it was heated, I didn't look out of place, and . . . well, I knew one of the whores.

I know. It sounds very strange: I was sitting in a whorehouse, but I wasn't there looking for a whore, I was there because I knew one of the whores.

When I had arrived, some time earlier, the madam (or so I presumed she was -- I am not wise in the ways of the prostitution trade) had told me that the girl I knew was busy at the moment. I told her that, nonetheless, I wanted to talk to this girl. She told me to wait.

I didn't think she'd anticipated me being willing to wait for so long.

I had brought my few possessions in with me; it looked more than a bit strange, but, after all, it was Alaska and no one much cared what you liked -- much less the whores -- so long as you were willing to pay. I attracted little notice anyway; as I have said, it was a quiet whorehouse.

The girl whom I knew had been a passing acquaintance of mine upon my arrival in Alaska. We had exchanged names -- we had no calling cards or addresses to exchange, myself being a convict and her being in transit from one place to another -- and I had decided to seek her out at last.

When she finally appeared out of a door I certainly would not have expected her to appear out of, I began talking almost immediately.

"I need your help," I began.

She cut me off, grabbing me by the shoulders and telling me, curtly, to save it for the bedroom. She then proceeded to drag me by the wrist through the door she had entered through and into the hall beyond.

"What the hell were you thinking?" she hissed at me.

"What?" I said.

"You don't start until we're alone together," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"I don't understand what you're saying," I said, bemused.

She sighed. "Christ. You look like a college kid. That old and you've never been to a cathouse before?"

"No, no," I tried to clarify. "Don't you remember me? Will?"

She furrowed her brow, thinking. Then her expression brightened; she remembered me. "The convict kid, right?" she said.

"Yes." I sighed.

"Aw, of course I remember you," she said brightly. "How could I forget you?" She looked at me critically, dragging me into an unoccupied room. "You've changed, though." She sniffed. "How long's it been since you bathed? And you've gone and kept growing your hair. I told you, you look ridiculous with it long."

"Well, you've changed, too," I said belligerently.

"It's the hair." She grinned, rakishly. "I've dyed it."

She was not a large woman; she was, in fact, fairly small, with a petite figure. The last time I had seen her, she'd had brown hair, rather pretty in its light color. Now she had lighter, blonder hair. She still had the same eyes -- I would never admit it to her, but I had decided to talk to her, long ago in the port, because she had beautiful eyes. They were green -- very green. She had a pretty face, as well -- but wise. It was a good face, or so I thought. I didn't know what other men would think of it.

"I liked you better when you were a brunette," I said, entirely truthful.

"And I liked you better pale," she said playfully. "You had a sort of desperate appeal. You've gone and gotten tanned, though."

"Well, I've been spending a lot of time outside," I admitted.

"What were you doing?" she asked, apparently quite honest in her curiosity.

"Well, just taking walks."

"You sound all guilty," she said. "How long for?"

"A few weeks, usually," I said, feeling somewhat guilty, though I had committed no wrong.

She smiled. "That's no walk, that's a fucking campout," she said.

I winced when she swore. "Please, uh, don't . . . don't . . . "

"Don't what?" she said, hands poised on the buttons of my (quite dirty by this point) shirt.

"Don't . . . uh . . . " I was becoming rather flustered at this point, because she was following through on her unvoiced promise: she had begun to unbutton my shirt.

"Don't _swear_," I finally managed to say.

"Okay," she said brightly, and gaily went on unbuttoning your shirt. "Do you want me to take it off, or will you?"

I skittered away from her, pressing myself against the wall. (I must admit, I presented a rather ridiculous figure at the time: my shirt was undone and hanging off me, I was unwashed, and I was cowering against a whorehouse wall. I felt like a character in a dime pulp novel. What would happen next to me? It probably involved either guns or girls. It was always guns or girls.) "Don't!" I said, startled by the frightened tone of my voice. "Don't do that, please."

"Why not?" she said, pressing herself up against me and looking up into my eyes.

Suddenly, she drew back. "You didn't _really_ think you were just coming here to talk to me, did you?" she demanded.

"What . . . what do you mean?" I stammered, trying to back away from her and not succeeding. There was a wall there, and I seemed to have forgotten that fact in my haste. "Of course I . . . "

"Because," she interrupted me, "you'll still have to pay me." She ran her fingers through her hair. "My time is very valuable. No matter what you're doing with me during the time you spend, you pay the same amount of money." She smiled and whispered into my ear. "Besides, it'll look suspicious if you walk out of here calm, cool, and collected."

I stammered helplessly for a moment while she looked up at me. Finally, she groaned in disappointment. I thought she was going to let me alone, and I relaxed. This was a mistake on my part.

She took the opportunity to grab me by my shoulders and . . . well, the best description would be to say that she put me on the bed. Really, though, she forced me down onto the bed.

"Your shirt," she said. "Take it off."

Confused, I complied.

"Pants," she ordered, and took off my shoes for me -- I didn't expect her to have such an easy time of it, being that they were old boots. As far as boots get old, anyway. They'd been repaired quite a bit, but they still worked. If something without moving parts can be said to work.

I still had my hands on my belt when she turned around and demanded to know why I had not removed my trousers yet.

"Well . . . "

"Out with it," she grumbled, suddenly businesslike as she sat on the end of the bed. (Well, it _was_ her business, technically speaking.)

"Well, I haven't washed in weeks!" I said, the words coming out all in a rush, squashed together into one word.

"Do you think I care?" she asked. I was startled into silence.

"Because I don't," she continued. "Trust me, I've seen worse (and I've seen better)," she added parenthetically.

"And besides," she grinned, leaning in close to me, "you smell nice."

"What?" I said, shocked. I was still in that state as she began to remove my pants herself.

"Excuse me!" I said, putting a firm hand to the area she was focused on and removing hers from my fly.

"Oh, what is it now?" she said, irritated.

"I wasn't expecting this!" I said, desperately. "I really just wanted to talk to you . . . "

I trailed off as she took the opportunity of my distraction to go ahead and finish taking off my pants, then remembered I had been indignant, not fascinated. (I feverishly wished, then, that I had not been such a cheapskate, and had bothered to purchase underwear on my arrival in the port. I hadn't, and I regretted it then, though never after.)

I crossed my legs. "Really, I just wanted to ask you if . . . " I trailed off again. She had produced a pair of scarves from somewhere.

"Are you all right with scarves?" she said.

"Er . . . well, I suppose . . . " I said dubiously.

She took this as a cue to tie my wrists in such a manner that I could not bring my arms out of a fixed position above my head. I really don't know why I didn't fight her off more strenuously. Except, perhaps, that I was enjoying it. Possibly.

I crossed my legs; stripped of clothes, tied to the headboard, it was the most I could do for modesty.

Meanwhile, my acquaintance was busy removing all her clothes. All of them. She wasn't wearing much in the first place, but I was certainly startled to see her naked.

She took note of my somewhat baffled expression.

"Have you _ever_ seen a woman naked before?" she demanded.

"Er, no . . . " I said hesitantly.

She groaned. "Oh, Christ. That might explain it."

"What?" I asked, rather honestly curious.

"Why, given a room alone with a whore in rather good standing (as far as you can say that of a whore), the first thing you thought of was talking to her, not sex." Instead of displeasure, the main emotion I detected in her tone was . . . amusement. I began to fear for my virginity.

"Well, honestly, I _did_ just want to talk to you," I began.

"Oh, come on," she said, displeased this time. "You're just lying to yourself."

"No, I'm not!" I protested, rather thinly. "I am not lying!"

She looked at me for a moment, seemingly taken at least a little bit aback by this exclamation. "Really?"

"Yes," I said. "I'm not lying, really, I just wanted to ask you if you had . . . "

"Oh, quiet," she said good-naturedly, then added, "If you'd like, I can gag you."

"_Gag_ me?" I said, shocked. (It was a reasonable reaction. As far as education on the matter of sexual amusements, mine had barely extended to homosexual activities -- and those I had learned about from Nathaniel on board ship. (And I _assure you_, he had not taken the opportunity to give me experience in those manners. Neither of us was interested.) I didn't know that people _liked_ to be restrained when in the act. Of course, later on I became intimately more familiar with the curious particulars of the act, but that is a story for later on.)

"Yes. Gag you," she said, rather too calmly, I thought. "Only if you're into that, though," she added hastily. "And it's not as bad as it sounds," she added. Then she frowned a little. "And remember," she added, somewhat more nastily than the situation warranted, "you said the scarves were all right."

"Well, yes, I did," I began, conceding, and then she pounced upon me. But before I speak of . . . _that_, let me say something else:

Picture this scene for a moment, if only that long. I am naked on a bed in a small, cheap-looking room in a whorehouse. I am tied to the headboard with scarves. My hair is in a loose ponytail, thrown back over my shoulder. I am beginning to sweat.

Contrast this with the figure of my acquaintance. (Incidentally, her name was Sonia.) She is confident-looking, though completely starkers naked, not wearing one stitch of clothing. Her hands are planted firmly on her hips, and she is looking at me a little suspiciously.

I return you to the scene with a mental image in hand. Feel free to discard it. I have attempted to. But I want you to know that, at that moment, I realized that I was in it, and not getting out until I was, ah, done. Mainly because it would have looked distinctly odd had someone happened to walk in on us.

"Oh, is that what's bothering you?" she said kindly. "Let me lock the door."

She walked over to the room, and I felt that I had, at last, the confidence to protest more strongly.

"What's bothering me," I began confidently, "is that you're . . . oh _Christ_."

"I'm not Him," she said softly, seductively as she walked back towards me after having locked the door, "but I can make you see Him."

"Oh _no_," I said.

She sat down astride my legs, which I still had crossed. It felt distinctly odd, having a full-grown woman, wearing no more than what God had given her at her birth, sitting on my legs.

She put a hand on my hip, and I was quite suddenly aware of how close my hip was to my, ah . . . _bits_.

"I only wanted to ask you if you had somewhere I could stay!" I wailed. It felt good to finally get that sentence out of my mouth. Never mind the circumstances.

"You just wanted somewhere to _stay_?" she said, surprised. She grinned. "I think we're past that stage," she said. "You can come over to my place later tonight," she said, affectionately this time.

I knew something else had to be coming. I just _knew_ it.

She moved off of my legs, kneeling on the slim strip of mattress to one side. "Uncross your legs," she ordered.

"Why should I?" I demanded, growing defensive.

"Because," she said, smiling sweetly, "I just want you to have a little fun for once."

"I . . . I . . . " I sighed deeply. Well, I could give into temptation this once. But only once, mind you. Only once. "All right." I uncrossed my legs, feeling suddenly far more vulnerable than I had a moment before.

"All right, then," she said, again moving so that she was straddling me at mid-thigh. She put a hand on my hip, almost comfortingly. "But _promise_ to at least have fun."

"I will, I will!" I said, perhaps a little shrilly.

"You're far too uptight," she said. "Learn to relax a little."

She inched her hand a little closer to my bits . . . wang, dick, cock, member, whatever. I yelped in surprise and tried to get away from the invading hand.

"That's _exactly_ what I mean," she said.

"Well, it's kind of a . . . sensitive area!" I said, again getting defensive. (Righteously so.)

She sighed, and grudgingly moved her hand towards my hip. "That's the _point_." She shook her head from side to side, her hair gently moving along with it. "Did you flunk out of sexual education or something?"

"Well, no, not exactly," I said, beginning to relax a little. "I just . . . I never really saw all that much in it."

"Huh." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "I've never actually heard that one before. I've had clients who were _afraid_ of sex, I've had plenty of super-religious clients who'd never _heard_ of sex . . . but I can't say I've ever had one who'd never had a good experience with it."

"That's not it," I began.

She kept talking. "I'd be glad to change that for you," she said gently. "Where would you like me to start?"

"I . . . uh . . . I . . . " I stammered for a moment. I had no idea what she was talking about, really. Really I didn't. Please believe me on that. "And how long have you been a whore, actually?"

"Longer than you'd think," she said, smiling. "Not all that long, but long enough, I guess. I'm up here because I heard it was a bit more . . . free-spirited. And then I had the luck to meet you, too."

"And, uh, it's not that I've had bad experiences before . . . " I trailed off. She was waiting patiently for me to finish talking. I could see it in her eyes, and that sight struck fear into my heart.

"But . . . "

"What?"

"There's always a but." She leaned in closer to me. "Come on. I won't wait all night."

"It's afternoon," I said absently. "I mean," I began again, "it's not that I've had bad experiences before, it's more that . . . more that I haven't had any experiences before," I finished lamely.

She nodded, knowingly. "Except with your hand," she said.

"Excuse me?" I sputtered, then had to concede that pretending I knew nothing about anything wasn't going to get me far. Especially since I was _already_ tied to a bed. And naked. "Well . . . all right," I conceded guiltily, "except with my hand."

She patted me on the head. "Good. I think you're working off some of that doubt already."

"Who are you, my therapist?" I said. It wasn't the most witty or brilliant comment I could have made, but it worked well enough. At least for my purposes.

"No," she said calmly. "I'm a whore. I happen to be your _friend_, but I'm still a whore. And I intend to do my job."

She slid her hand back to its former awkward position. "And by the way, the delaying tactics really didn't work," she added, obviously amused.

I absolutely refuse to discuss what happened next. Mainly because it was embarrassing, I was naked, and because . . . well, I did enjoy it. Very much so. Luckily, she had tissues on hand to clean herself up, and I said I was sorry, and everything turned out all right.

I even got a place to spend the night.

And she agreed to let me pay her back later, after I had money.

It wasn't so bad after all.


	31. Chapter Ten, part IV

Stephen is, for the first time in months, feeling quite optimistic about his novel. It's going well. He's figured out where he's going -- actually, he did that long ago -- and now he's finally gotten his feet back on the path to the end. He feels good about it.

He backs away from the desk. He's done enough writing for today. He presses a hand to his ribs, wincing; his ribs are getting sore again. He should probably go rest for a while, let himself recover.

He doesn't remember the accident at all. Apparently this is a normal side effect; he's blocking out memories he doesn't want to have.

But he can guess what must have happened, because now he's under strict orders not to try to fly, and his ribs ache off and on. He suspects that his ribs were broken in the accident.

He sighs and settles into an easy chair, drawing his legs up onto the ottoman. It's cold; he clutches his coat tightly about himself. He wants to sleep, but his mind is alive and buzzing with ideas now, like it always is after he's been writing for a while.

He wonders where Charles is. He almost misses the younger boy's companionship, after spending a year sharing a room with him. It's like the room is empty without him.

He leans his head back against the chair, finding it comforting. Other than the novel, he really doesn't have a reason to feel _good_ about himself. His family is considering committing him to an insane asylum because he has long blank periods when he is insensible. (He had wondered who they would turn over leadership of the family to, then remembered little Elizabeth. She might be a girl, but even a woman is better suited to leadership than a lunatic.) He's been in some sort of terrible accident, and from what he can get out of the few people he speaks to other than his family, it was a suicide attempt on his part. Of course, his family tell him that he was pushed onto the tracks by some stranger who hasn't been identified. They'll never identify the stranger, he thinks (a little more bitterly than he should), because there _was_ no stranger.

Yet, he wonders, what happens during his blank periods? Never mind where he goes (a question that would once have fascinated him) then. What happens to him -- his body -- when he, Stephen, is not in residence? Does his face go blank, does he become catatonic and not react to anything, or does something else happen?

He may not know, but he is fascinated by the idea.

He laughs and shakes his head from side to side, trying to jar himself out of this dark mood. It's been a good day -- the day has been good to him, that is.

It doesn't work, anyway. He didn't really expect it to. He'll probably stay in this gloomy, brooding mood for quite a while, lifting back into happiness only after another of his blank periods occurs and then remits. He knows that this worries his family, but don't they have enough to worry about already?

A knock comes at the door, and he gets out of the chair and stands. "Who is it?" he calls. He's aware it's late -- though he doesn't remember exactly what time it is, for he's left his watch on the desk -- so he keeps his voice low. His family won't know, anyway -- all their bedrooms are on the upper floor.

"Someone to see you," says the voice of their butler from the other side of the door.

"Send him in," says Stephen. He walks over to the desk and carefully puts his manuscript back together, then stows it back in its special drawer. He returns his pen to its little pen-holder and caps the inkwell. He evens the sides of the stack of foolscap scratch paper and leaves it in its place on the corner of the desk.

"All right," says the butler, somewhat dubiously.

And Charles appears, opening the door and walking in tentatively, as if he fears he is in the wrong house after all.

Stephen looks at him, shocked. "Charles," he says. He can't think of anything else to say.

Charles looks at him in the same way; shocked. But Charles looks sad as well, as if he were expecting someone else to greet him. "Stephen?" he says hesitantly.

"Yes, that's me," says Stephen.

"I thought it would be Moth," says Charles, a little sadly.

"Who's Moth?" asks Stephen.

A pained look crosses Charles' face. He shakes his head. "You wouldn't know him."

"But I look like him," says Stephen.

"Yes, you do," says Charles, obviously choosing his words carefully. "You'd look almost exactly like him with your hair in a ponytail."

"Ah," says Stephen, and he nods. "Did you want to talk to me about something?"

"I . . . " Charles blushes, and he turns away from Stephen, studying the bookshelf. "No," he says, again carefully. "I just wanted to tell you I was sorry about your accident."

"At . . . " Stephen checks his watch. "At eleven at night? An hour before midnight, and you wanted to tell me you were sorry about my accident?" He shakes his head. "I don't believe it. What are you really here for?"

Charles seems to have been struck dumb. Stephen studies him, casting him in the light of a newly observed character in his novel.

Charles is not tall at all. He's still just a kid -- barely fifteen, Stephen remembers. But he won't be tall, not even later in life. He's small, almost fragile-looking, but he looks determined to do something.

His hair is brown, light-colored, evidently sun-bleached. His eyes are blue, clear, almost feminine -- the adjective Stephen would use is "pretty". Because his eyes _are_ pretty. He's tanned -- evidently Charles, at least, has been getting out of the house. Stephen knows that he is pale.

Charles looks strangely defiant, confident . . . almost proud, even.

"I . . . " he begins.

Stephen sighs.

"I wanted to talk to Moth," Charles says, looking at Stephen defiantly. "And since he's not here, I'll just leave and we'll forget about this."

Stephen is tired. He's beginning to get irritated with Charles. He grabs Charles by the shoulder and demands, "What did you want to talk to him about?"

Charles stares at him, still defiant.

"It's almost midnight," Stephen says. "People don't usually decide to call on friends of theirs at midnight."

"It's not midnight," says Charles.

"But why are you here?" Stephen demands.

He realizes, then, that this is ridiculous. It's too late. Charles doesn't deserve this from him.

He releases Charles' shoulder and steps back. He clears his throat.

Charles stares at him, his expression still defiant. Then, unexpectedly, he puts his arms around Stephen, drawing the older boy closer to him. It's unusual; Stephen expects Charles to speak to him now.

Instead, Charles leans forward and goes up on the tips of his toes.

He kisses Stephen on the cheek, then remains with his head next to Stephen's neck, his arms around Stephen, for a moment before he lets go and steps back.

He walks over to the door and slips out, but not before he turns and looks at Stephen again, evenly meeting his puzzled gaze.

Stephen raises a hand to his cheek. He doesn't believe this, either. Yet it makes sense, at least.

He sighs. It's too late. This may have been a dream, anyway.

He blows out the light and makes his way toward the couch where he sleeps.

He undresses, neatly folding his clothes next to the couch on the floor.

He lies down on the couch and draws the covers over him.

He's still thinking about Charles when suddenly sleep comes upon him.

When he wakes up, he decides for his own peace-of-mind that it was just a late-night fantasy brought on by lack of sleep. Nothing more.

And yet he's waiting for Charles to come back.

If only for an explanation.


	32. Chapter Ten, part V

After the tests were over, Molly and Mr. Swift went home. She hadn't understood any of the tests, what they were supposed to do, but she didn't really mind having to take them.

And then, one day, Mr. Swift was called back to the Laboratories. He assured Molly he would come back.

He came back, all right, but he came back long after dark, and yet he took the trouble to seek Molly out where she lay sleeping in bed, to tell her what had happened.

"Molly," he said quietly, shaking her by the shoulder.

She woke up, grudgingly, begrudging him the sleep she'd been dragged out of. "Yes?" she said, still half-asleep.

She never forgot the way he held the candle. His hand shook so that the light quavered over his face, making him into a figure in a shadow show, something out of a dream. Later she would say that that moment was when she passed out of childhood forever, and never regained her innocence after.

"It's about the tests," he said, and sighed heavily. "I don't know if you would understand."

"What about the tests?" said Molly, beginning to wake up more fully.

"You passed," he said, two simple words that even an uneducated country girl like Molly understood.

And yet, he looked pale, weary, sad. She didn't understand that, not in the least.

"What's the problem, if I passed?" Molly asked.

"Well," he said, and trailed off. He set the candle down on the floor.

"Well," he began again. "You'll be going to school now. Every day of the week -- you'll have Saturdays and Sundays off, of course."

"That doesn't sound so bad," said Molly, feeling as if she were the sensible one there.

"You're going to be apprenticed to one of the scientists at the Laboratories," he continued, and Molly saw a smile trembling at the corners of his lips.

Molly didn't really understand what that meant, and she began to ask what he meant. "Mr. Swift?"

He laughed aloud; a happy laugh, but quiet so that he would not wake Tommy, still asleep in the next room.

"Oh, Molly!" said Mr. Swift. He smiled. "It's wonderful, wonderful news. It's the best education you'll ever have a chance at; the best education anyone could wish for." His smile faded.

"But?" she asked. She could tell there was a "but" somewhere.

"You're not . . . " He sighed. "Molly, do you know what centivo means?"

She blinked, somewhat confused. "No . . . "

He looked at her, a tired look on his face. "It's the proper term for people . . . people like you."

She still didn't quite understand, but she nodded as if she did. She'd found it to be the best strategy for getting by with adults.

"Because you're a . . . centivo," he said, hesitating before the word, "because you're not like everyone else . . . You won't be treated the same."

She shrugged. That was the way it had always been, hadn't it?

"Normally, after your education there, you'd be sent off to practice somewhere else . . . in the Outlands or in Alaska, probably," he said, slowly. "But because you are a centivo, I'm . . . I'm not sure what will happen to you after you finish your education."

"That's all right," Molly said brightly. "I'll manage."

He sighed.

"And it will be a long time before you finish your education, Molly. Don't misunderstand that. You're ten now, aren't you?"

"Yes," she said, but evidently he hadn't anticipated an answer from her, because he kept speaking.

"You'll be almost twenty by the time you're done at the Laboratories. Of course, you won't need to go to college -- your education will be very specific to one subject at the Laboratories -- but you'll be much older than you are now by the time you're done." He paused for breath. "And you'll have to work -- hard. You haven't had any education, because it's illegal -- did you know that? -- to teach centivos, so you'll have to work harder than normal to prove you belong at the Laboratories."

He sighed and peered at her in the close, dark room. "Did you understand all of that, Molly?"

She nodded. "Yes."

He shook his head. "I don't think you really did. I'll wake you up tomorrow to take you to the Laboratories. You don't have anything to pack, so it'll be easier than it usually is."

She wondered at what he was saying to her, but decided to save her many questions for some other time. After all, it was so late at night, and it wouldn't be fair.

He sighed again and picked up the candle from the floor. "Good night, Molly. I'll see you in the morning."

"Good night, Mr. Swift," she said.

He left the room, and she could hear as he creaked down the hallway. But instead of going into his own bedroom, he went downstairs. Probably to his study, then. She didn't understand why, but then again she didn't understand very much at all about the city.

She wondered at how many bedrooms Mr. Swift's house had in it. It seemed as if he had once had a family to live in these rooms -- that was the explanation that made the most sense to her, anyway -- and now that they were gone, he could afford to house both Tommy and Molly in different rooms.

Molly listened to nothing in particular, curled up beneath the sheets and the worn quilt thrown over the top of all as an afterthought, a courtesy to cold weather. She heard Mr. Swift creaking back and forth over the floorboards on the floor below her, and she heard him cough loudly, now unafraid of waking anyone. She heard a dog bark somewhere far away, and as she listened it began to rain.

She could see the light of the half-full moon, where it shone in through the window. It was a calm, silvery light, and she realized, a little sadly, that it was less brilliant than it had been at home, where after the house was asleep the only light you could see for miles and miles was the moon, or the stars on moonless nights.

Here in the city, she could see the faint glow of the streetlights, even though she was lying down inside in bed.

She closed her eyes, pretending she was back home instead. But it wasn't her home anymore, and even this place wasn't home for her. And Miss Tanith's house wasn't a home because it was gone.

As near as she could tell, the Laboratories were going to be her next home . . . and right then, she was homeless.

But she wasn't scared. She was half-asleep, and she pushed those thoughts away, thinking loose, dreamy thoughts until eventually she fell asleep and suddenly it was morning and Mr. Swift was shaking her awake.

Except he looked different, and she realized that he wasn't blind, and she realized that he was blind in her dream, and that was funny because really he could see, of course, and she laughed and he laughed with her.

And then they went outside the house and it was daylight but it was winter so it was cold and Mr. Swift said Molly it's too cold out here is your coat and she put the coat on and then she was warmer and she said thank you Mr. Swift and he laughed again and said it was no problem, no problem at all.

And they were walking and she realized everything was different and she asked Mr. Swift what was different and he said that nothing was different and then she realized what was different: everyone looked the same. Of course they had different color skin and hair and eyes and some of the men were hanging onto each other's arms and laughing and there were two women on a bench looking into each other's eyes as if the whole world were there inside, and she realized what was the difference: there were no centivos in this world, only people.

And then she woke up for real, and she felt light and free because of her dream, only she didn't know quite why for a long time, until she told a story about it at a party and finally she realized that it was good because everyone was equal but everyone was still different.


	33. Chapter Ten, part VI

At last, the time for the next meeting came around. I had painstakingly copied out the book (after I finished reading it, of course) onto the paper I could get -- some ripped from the endpapers of other books, some new and acquired by stealing it from inattentive customers at a coffeehouse, and some old and battered -- and now I had a new samizdat copy to pass on whenever I needed to do so. I kept the original in my overcoat pocket, still, because now I understood that I could never predict a disaster, and the overcoat would be the first thing I grabbed in the event I had to flee the building. The copy I had made I kept on my makeshift desk. When I went out I carried it with me in a pocket of my overcoat.

Sonia, indeed, let me stay at her apartment; it was an agreeable arrangement, and I put forth what money I could towards the rent so that I wouldn't feel myself to be taking advantage of her.

I still took long walks, but not as long as I had before; now I felt an attachment to the city, as far as it could be called a city. Because Vladimir and Joseph were there, and they expected me to be there . . . and, yes, because Sonia was there. I thought of her, though, mostly as a sister of mine.

The roominghouse's parlor turned out to be a dilapidated, beaten-up, well-used place. The entire building was worn, almost empty of residents; Vladimir and Joseph said that they lived there because their rent was so low. I thought perhaps they had other reasons, but it was not my place to say.

The second meeting was different from the first; Sam was there, but Adam and Vladimir weren't. Joseph was there, and Anna as well.

Other than that, it was almost exactly the same, except for the addition of a new -- to me, at least -- member, who introduced himself as Leon to me. He was an intense-looking young man, whose age I judged at about twenty or so, with dark brown hair which he combed in a rather singular style.

"Friends," he began, standing up and taking a place behind his chair; I noticed that Leon had a tendency to gesticulate while making speeches, and with one hand on the chair, he began his speech.

"Friends," he repeated, "we are all gathered here in pursuit of the great proletariat revolution, but unless I am mistaken, we were all born members of the bourgeoisie."

We glanced uncomfortably at each other, and Leon continued. I was already beginning to like his style of speechmaking. I felt that someday he would give speeches in front of great crowds who would come only to listen to this thin-faced young man speak.

"I do not doubt," he continued, and I began to notice the high pitch of his voice, unusual but in no way detracting from the effectiveness of his speech, "comrades, I do not doubt that, as young people you were taught that communism was a failed philosophy, the philosophy of high-minded men who were, nevertheless, doomed to failure. But this is not true: this is a most egregious lie!" He paused.

"In truth," he went on, "any man who has seen the mistreatment of the proletariat in the slums, any man who has seen how the bourgeoisie repress and put down those of the lower class, any man who has removed his blinders can see that communism is not a fool's philosophy, a toy for college students to play with before discarding, but that communism is -- communism is the only way to free humanity from its ancestral shackles!"

He flushed a dark pink and immediately took a seat in his chair. "What do you think of this draft?" he asked, taking a sheaf of notecards from his coat pocket. "I haven't gotten very far, that's all I have done, actually, but I think it's rather nice."

"It is, so far," said Joseph, thoughtfully. He trailed off.

Leon sipped nervously at his coffee, nibbling on the edge of the cup. I hardly knew him, but already I had a clear mental picture of the man: nervous-temperamented, fancying himself a writer, perhaps once a student before dropping out or being expelled and coming north.

"But I do think," said Joseph, speaking as if interrupting someone already speaking, though no one else had uttered a word, "I do think that you should finish it."

Leon smiled. "I will, then."

"It is, truthfully," continued Joseph, "much better than your first draft was."

"That it is," agreed Anna. "Phew! -- I could hardly sit through that one."

"It_ was_ a bit long," said the author of this speech which I had never heard.

"A bit long?" said Anna, half joking. "A bit long? Christ, I could have left the room and gone out drinking, and when I came back you would have still been talking."

"Oh, that's not true," said Sam, a bit defensively.

"What, were you asleep when he read his first draft to us?" Anna said, sarcastic.

"No," said Sam, attempting to sound as dignified as reasonably possible. "I had been drinking coffee."

"So it was only the caffeine keeping you awake, then?" said Anna, with an innocent, straight face.

"You listen!" said Sam hotly, and Leon laughed softly, then turned to me and addressed himself to me:

"I'm sorry, comrade, but I don't recall that I caught your name. Were we introduced?"

"Er, no," I said cautiously.

"Well, my name is Leon," he said, perfectly civil, "and yours is?"

"Yuri," I said, as Anna and Sam continued their argument, which by now had grown into a farcical "intellectual disagreement".

"It's a pleasure to meet you," he said, good-naturedly. "You can't be from around here, can you? You don't seem like the type."

"Well, I'm not," I admitted. "I'm actually from the capitol originally . . ."

"I was raised here," he said. "My parents were the children of immigrants, and we used to visit my father's mother at her house on Ratmanov Island when I was a boy."

"Ratmanov Island?" I asked. "I haven't heard of it."

"Oh, it's quite a ways from here," he said quietly. "Very far west. We used to live out on Krusenstern Island, which isn't very far from my grandmother's house -- not very far at all by boat." He looked off into the distance for a while. "So what's brung you all the way up to Alaska?" he asked suddenly.

"Oh," I said, growing uneasy. "Well, I was convicted of a crime, and they decided that, instead of a death sentence, banishment to Alaska was preferable, they might get some work out of me . . ."

Leon laughed aloud. "Ah, I see! One of the few sensible policies, having prisoners work instead of die, though it makes very little sense to send them so far away, if you ask me -- it raises a revolutionary tendency in them. But what were you convicted of?"

"Murder," I said, trying to keep my face, my voice perfectly, perfectly neutral. But I knew that that word could not help but ring grim upon his ears, and so I braced myself for his reaction.

Instead of any one of a thousand possible reactions, he reacted in a rather favorable way to my news; he smiled, put his hand out, and clapped me on the back. "Who was it?" he asked.

"Some government official," I muttered, staring into my own cup of coffee, which, though still hot, was mostly untouched -- I hadn't got an opportunity to drink it yet.

"Ah, a good choice -- one of the corrupt ones, I suppose?"

"I don't know," I said, still staring at my coffee.

"Why not, comrade?" he asked, sounding genuine in his innocence. "Why kill him if you weren't certain of his affiliations?"

"I didn't kill him," I said. Had I been a character in a dime pulp novel -- which, indeed, I felt like on occasion -- I would have repeated my statement in a shout and stormed from the room, never to dally in communism again; indeed, I would have turned the lot of them in.

But, of course, I was not a character in a dime pulp novel. I didn't turn them in. I didn't shout. And I devoted myself to the cause from thereon out. Because this was Leon's reaction:

He smiled, quietly, and asked me if I would accompany him after the meeting's end. Then he said, at a more general volume, "Then, comrade, I believe you have one of the most individually powerful reasons to support the cause of the revolution: you were personally wronged, and of course, a personal wrong is a sensible reason to persecute those who wronged you."

Within, I breathed a sigh of relief. Outwardly, I nodded. "Thank you," I said.

"Thank _you_, comrade," he said.

He sipped from his coffee. "And when is your sentence up?"

I sighed. "Not for another nine years."

He frowned. "Ah, that's a shame." He leaned closer to me. "But, you know, they're not... they aren't even _keeping track_ of you!" He spread his arms widely. "Why, they wouldn't know if you left here tomorrow!"

"No," I said quietly, pensively. "No. They wouldn't, would they?"

He smiled at me. "You're a man after my own heart, Yuri." Then he leaned in close to me and whispered in my ear:

"Why don't you come and visit me some time?"

He gave me an address.

As it was, it was quite a while before I paid him a visit.


	34. Chapter Eleven, part I

Chapter Eleven: And The Edges Blur

Molly stared out the window. It was getting dark outside; the end of her first day at the Laboratories, over so soon. She'd expected it to be a longer day, but it seemed to have passed in only a moment.

Mr. Swift had woken her up at what seemed like the very crack of dawn, and she had dressed quickly in the darkness before dawn -- Mr. Swift had helped her with her corset, and she had remembered to thank him. Then they had left the house, clattering through the nearly-empty streets in Mr. Swift's own carriage. She supposed that he did this because he wanted to give her a fair send-off . . . after all, she wouldn't have a chance to see him again for eight years, and she might never see him again.

But the carriage pulled up not to the drive in the front of the Laboratories, but to what seemed a servants' entrance in the back, and Mr. Swift waved her goodbye as she got out of the carriage, carrying, now, only her little carpetbag and the clothes on her back. And, of course, she carried the weight of Mr. Swift's expectations of her, but she felt that burden begin to lighten now that she stood here alone out back of the Laboratories-- he wasn't here to watch her, was he? So it was like he expected nothing of her . . . how would he know, anyway?

She waited there, in the coldish early morning out behind the Laboratories, for what seemed like hours and hours. But she didn't have a watch, so she had no way of telling what time it had been when she arrived and what time it was when she wondered how long it had been since she arrived. Instead she listened as the city gradually pulled itself out of sleep. Carriages began to clatter to and fro on the streets -- she could hear them, faintly.

But she had been waiting for quite a while when someone finally came out of the door -- and what was more, the someone noticed her sitting there.

"Hullo?" said the stranger, approaching Molly with a light step. "Come on, get up off the ground."

Molly shook herself out of the mild doze she'd slipped into and stood up, clutching her carpetbag protectively.

"Come on, come inside," said the stranger impatiently, ushering her in through the door.

Once Molly had come inside the Laboratories proper, the stranger shut the door and offered her hand for Molly to shake. "The name's Worth," she said after Molly had shaken her hand. "I'll be your mum until we get you to your dormitory. What's your name?"

"Molly," Molly said, suddenly feeling unsettled and a little sick. "Molly Free."

Worth's expression brightened. "Oh, I remember _you_!" she said brightly as she led Molly down what seemed a characterless corridor, carpeted with wood-paneled walls. "You tested higher than anyone has in seventy years on the test!"

"Did I?" said Molly, cluelessly.

Worth looked at her, curious. "You didn't get your results back, did you?" she asked. Then she sighed and waved her hand. "Well, you don't need to know your exact score. Here you are. Good bye."

And with that, Worth was off, walking purposefully off down the hall. Molly screwed up her courage, opened the door, and stepped inside.

The room was almost empty. It was a fairly large room compared to what Molly was used to sleeping in -- perhaps sixteen feet long by eight feet wide -- and there were only two other girls in it, both fast asleep in the top and bottom bunks of a bunk bed.

Molly made her way to the bottom bunk of the unoccupied bunk bed and set her carpetbag down on the neatly made bed. She glanced about. Yes. She could get used to this place.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, tapping her heels together. She was bored. And she was tired.

So she lay down on the bed (after stashing her carpetbag underneath, of course -- Molly was a sensible girl for ten) on top of the sheets, and she fell asleep. It wasn't really sleep -- she drifted in and out of it -- but at least it was rest, and it felt good to be resting.

And then, at some point, she actually fell asleep. And she actually dreamed.

It was very confused after she woke up, but while she was asleep it made perfect sense:

She was outside again, wandering through the park. But it was getting dark outside, and she was looking for a house to go into to take shelter from the storm she knew was coming because the air smelled sharp and full of lightning, but all the doors she tried were locked so she settled for sitting down under a tree while she waited for maybe the storm to start and for maybe someone to find her.

Eventually, someone found her and let her come into his house where she drank tea as it began to rain; it was dark outside with the coal-colored clouds hugging low down to the earth, and the lightning slamming and pounding sheets of tin somewhere in the sky, and the rain bucketing down out of those dark, coal-colored clouds and smashing itself to bits on the windows.

She couldn't remember his face but he had a kind voice and he gave her tea so he couldn't be all bad could he, and besides he was only a little bit older than her, a man with long brown hair kind of like hers and nice eyes. She wasn't afraid of him.

And so she talked to him while the storm pounded on the windows and the roof of the house; she talked about tea and he told her that he liked tea too, and she talked about the country and he asked her to tell him more, and she talked about how different the city was from the country and he lamented how busy the bustling city was, how hard it was to remember what the country was like once you got into the city, how hard it was to remember what you had been like when you were living in the country. And she agreed with what he was talking about, because it felt like she was being watched over her shoulder by someone kind of like God who happened to be all powerful, but someone who didn't deserve to have that power, who shouldn't be able to behave like he was God because he wasn't, who shouldn't have as much power as he did.

And the man she was talking to laughed and said that the man she felt watching her wasn't a man at all, it was just the government and that they watched people all the time but that they had used to watch people a lot more than they did, so really she was pretty lucky to be alive when she was, and then she woke up, still feeling the cold air, the cold wet air from the rain, still hearing the rain pounding on the windows, having no key but still demanding to be let in.


	35. Chapter Eleven, part II

"You poor bastard."

I struggled wearily back to consciousness. I felt, roughly speaking, like shit. I didn't remember a goddamned thing about where I was or how I had gotten to be there in the first place . . . thankfully, the question of _who_ I was was still one I knew the answer to.

When I opened my eyes, Leon's face swam blurrily into focus as the light crashed into the backs of my eyes. He sighed and shook his head. "Why didn't you say something?"

"What?" I blinked, trying to make sense of my surroundings. I sat up and clutched my head in my hands; the sheet that had been laid over me fell and puddled in my lap.

"I figured you'd have a headache," he said quietly. "How much do you remember?"

"Urgh." I swallowed; my mouth was dry and tasted musty, misused, old. "I don't know."

He sighed. "You fainted on my doorstep."

"Oh." I blinked. That . . . while it didn't make sense entirely, it made some sense, which was progress if nothing else.

"Any idea why that might have been?" he asked.

"No," I said, shaking my head from side to side.

"At least you were wearing clothes," he said, almost meditative in tone.

"What?" I said, not believing what I had heard from his mouth. This was not the Leon I knew . . . if I even knew the real Leon. I realized that the Leon I had met at the meeting was probably nothing like the actual Leon in terms of personality.

"When you move in the circles I move in . . ." He let his sentence trail off, and walked out of my range of vision. " . . . you become accustomed to the strangest things," he finished, stepping back into my limited field of view.

Suddenly, instead of Leon's half-familiar face, I saw a girl. I struggled to get off the couch; the girl needed my help, and the sooner, the better.

"Yuri?" Leon's voice was dim and far away.

"She needs help," I gasped, trying to get to my feet. "She's in t- t- _trouble_," I said, and then everything went hazy as the acidy taste of bile rose in my throat and I hit the floor.

When I woke up, Leon was shaking me by the shoulder, and I judged that I hadn't been out long. My face was wet, dripping water, and I touched it tentatively.

"I wanted to wake you up," said Leon, a little sullenly.

"So you _threw a bucket of water on me_?" I said, incredulous -- probably rightly so, too.

"Well, yes," he admitted, sounding a little guilty. Which was not enough -- I seemed to be wearing my _good_ shirt and waistcoat, and now they (and I) were sopping wet. I was . . . more than a little bit angry. All right, I admit it, I was very angry . . . despite the tiny, irrational part of my mind that insisted I really ought to thank him because he had, after all, essentially just washed my clothes for me. But that didn't make any sense, and I made a note to give that part of my mind a sound thrashing once I had a moment alone with it.

I found this inexplicably hilarious, and I giggled a little until Leon lost patience with me and slapped me across the face.

"What was that for?" I asked. "I was _laughing_."

He looked at me in a way that I recognized -- the sort of look Nathaniel had given me once, while we were still aboard ship, when one of my wounds (now scarred over, thankfully, but still occasionally painful) had begun to bleed again. He had unleashed a stream of curses at me and ripped a spare shirt into makeshift bandages, which he used to bandage the wound while admonishing me in most indecorous terms to, next time, inform him when my wounds reopened or I began to fell ill, _before_ something disastrous happened to me.

Clearly, I had learned exactly nothing from that experience.

"You," he pronounced with excess gravity, "have a _problem_."

Which sent me off into yet another bout of the snickers until he threatened to throw another bucket of water over me, which reduced my hilarity to an insuppressible smile that gradually faded over the next minutes . . . though I still released the occasional snicker, unable to help myself.

It was all very, very funny.

I didn't know _why_ it was funny -- in fact, it seemed like it had no right to be funny -- but I found it utterly hilarious.

"Really," he said. "I'm serious. Why haven't you seen a doctor?"

I restrained my snickers and put on my very best poker face. "I didn't know I was . . . sick . . . until I woke up here," I pointed out. That was true. Even though the last thing I clearly remembered was the meeting where I had met Leon . . . but I didn't need to mention that. It would just make Leon worry . . . and why was I concerned over whether or not Leon worried about me?

"What's the last thing you remember before waking up?" he said. "The truth, Yuri," he added. "I'll know if you're lying."

"No, you won't," I pointed out, quite reasonably in my opinion. "We barely know each other."

"What's the last thing you remember before waking up here?" he asked, as if he were speaking to a dull child.

"Oh, all right," I said, sullenly. "The meeting."

He looked at me in alarm, then said, "Get up."

"What?" I said. "Why?" I remained where I was -- I didn't remember how, but I was sitting on the couch again, more or less half-upright.

"Because I said," he said grimly, and a little petulantly.

"Well, _why_?" I said, feeling like the reasonable one in the conversation. "I barely know you, why should I do what you say?"

"Because," he said, crossing his arms, "you're in my flat -- you fainted on my doorstep -- you're lying on my couch -- and I didn't have anything to do with any of that." He thought for a moment. "Well, all right," he admitted, "so I'm the one who brought you in."

"So all I did was faint on your doorstep," I said. "_You're_ the one who dragged me inside."

"Well, I wasn't going to leave you passed out in the hallway," he said defensively.

"Why not?" I asked, in as innocent a voice as I could muster.

"My neighbors would get suspicious," he said.

"Are you hiding something?" I demanded.

He looked at me sternly. "You," he declared, "are going to a doctor, right now."

"No, I'm _not_," I protested. "I'm perfectly fine."

"Then why are you still on my couch?" he asked. It was a rather reasonable question. "I know for a fact it's not a comfortable couch, so you're not staying there because it's comfortable."

"Of course not," I said, which didn't make much sense at all, even considering the strange situation. "I'm just staying here because this is where I am."

"I repeat," he said. "I'm taking you to a doctor."

"Who are you, my mother?" I muttered.

"Look." I sighed. "Just let me get up off your couch and then I'll leave and it'll all be fine, all right?"

"No, you are _not_ all right," he said, "but you won't let me prove it to you." He gestured to the door. "Go ahead. Leave."

"Then I will," I said, somewhat overconfidently, and stood up.

The floor then proceeded to decide it didn't want me to leave the apartment, and I fell to the ground. Or not really the ground, as such -- for some reason I thought of his apartment as being on the second or third floor of a building -- but the floor, anyway.

"I told you so," said Leon, somewhat smugly. I really didn't blame him.

"Look, that was a fluke," I protested, and got up off the floor.

That time I made it to the door before collapsing.

"_Clearly_, you need to see a doctor," noted Leon, as he watched me struggle back upright, this time using the wall as a support.

"All right, all right," I said. "You've proved your case. So are you going to take me to a doctor or not?"

He eyed me dubiously. "I know a fellow whose office is just down the street."

"Good," I said. "Let's go."

"You're going to have to walk," he said, still in a dubious tone.

"All _right_," I said, still leaning on the wall. "Then let's _go_."

After I had struggled my way down the stairs -- thanking the builders of the place for including a railing -- after I had made my way out the front door, but before I collapsed into the mud, Leon said something that normally would have elicited a violent response from me:

"Wouldn't you rather lean on me?"

I looked at him, then at the mud, then at the street we'd have to walk down to get to the doctor. Muddy. Nothing for me to lean on.

"All right," I snapped. "But if you ever breathe a _word_ of this . . ." I trailed off, trying to sound threatening as I threw my arm over Leon's shoulder and adjusted my balance.

"Yuri, my dear boy," he said with a laugh, "this is Alaska! No one cares what you do here, once you've gotten back home, wherever home may be."

We set off through the mire down the street. Thankfully, it appeared to have stopped raining some time before, so at least I wasn't any wetter than I'd been after Leon dumped the bucket of water on me.

And Leon kept talking. He had a tendency to do that, I would find in the weeks ahead. After all, he wrote speeches.

"And if it's your reputation you're worried about," he said, smiling, "well, a term in Alaska is nothing, nothing at all -- it'll make you seem dashing once you get back home! The ladies will simply flock to you -- just make up a few ripping tales of adventure and you'll have a devoted entourage, ready to follow you anywhere."

The idea did not appeal to me, but I felt an obligation to hold up my end of his monologue, if only to make him feel that he was holding a conversation, not giving a stage monologue. "Leon," I grumbled, "has it ever occurred to you that I'll be almost thirty when I get back home?"

"Oh, that's nothing!" he said, gaily. "Why, many's the man of great talent who didn't get a start on his life's work until he was thirty -- some not until they were fifty or more." He patted me on the shoulder. "Don't worry one bit."

"Oh, that's what you say," I said crossly.

"Yes, it _is_ what I say," he said, perhaps a little more playfully than was rational. "Because I just said it."

"Are you sure you're not sick yourself?" I asked. It seemed a reasonable question.

"Oh no, of course not," he said cheerily. "I'm fit as a fiddle, me."

"As opposed to me?"

"No," he said, "you're really not looking so good right now." He examined the door he had stopped in front of, then beamed at me. "Ah. Here we are," he said, and practically shoved me inside.

I took a seat in the nearest chair I could reach, a surprisingly nice chair, for a doctor's office, and for Alaska -- most of the things I had encountered in Alaska had been shabby and run-down (witness my own overcoat, boots and knapsack, as well as most of my clothing). It was brown, not leather, but cloth, of a weave that I didn't recognize with delicate little pale-pink flowers embroidered on it. There was a dark, rusty stain on the left armrest, which I tried to persuade myself was something innocuous, and most certainly _not_ blood.

And it was _breathing_.

Well. Not as such.

But the surface of the chair definitely appeared to be moving in and out. I blinked and stared at it. It was entrancing, amazing, hypnotic . . .

Leon grabbed me by the arm and hauled me bodily into the back room while I feebly protested that he really _had_ to take a look at that chair.

I sat down, feeling more than a little unstable, on the chair Leon steered me into. I made no protest; I was still somewhat occupied in marveling over the chair. It was _breathing_. Amazing.

"And _why_ have you brought him here?" demanded an unfamiliar voice. I didn't look up, but I presumed it to be the doctor. I hadn't even bothered to notice the name on the door. "He looks . . . well, I can't say he looks healthy, but I've seen men look worse."

"He _fainted_ on my _doorstep_, Nathan," said Leon, and I looked up into eyes that were all too familiar.

Of course. It _had_ to be Nathaniel Hockley.

"So," I said brightly. "You're a doctor now, are you? Where did you find the time to finish school?"

My former . . . well, he wasn't my friend. My _acquaintance_, then, sighed and looked at Leon before pressing the back of his hand to my forehead. "He's running a fever, Leon," he said, accusatorily.

"I am?" I said. "Really?"

"Yes, really," said my former acquaintance, absently. "And why is his hair wet?" he said, directing his question at Leon.

"Well, I dumped a bucket of water on him," Leon admitted, somewhat sheepishly -- but not as sheepishly as I'd have liked him to.

"What _for_?" demanded my former acquaintance.

"Well, he'd fainted again," said Leon, as if he were defending himself -- which, I suppose, he was. "On my floor instead of on my doorstep, but that's kind of a moot point, isn't it?"

My former acquaintance sighed and cradled his head in his hands. "Christ."

"He's not here right now," I said, mainly because it seemed like a bright idea, "but can I take a message for you?"

"And _why_ was he in your flat in the first place?" said my former acquaintance, and the tone of his voice suddenly reminded me of the attempt he'd made on my life. But that had been so long ago, and now he was a doctor. Surely he wouldn't kill me because I'd cracked an impudent joke? No, I decided, he wouldn't, because that was crossing a line. Even murderers had standards . . . or, well, so I supposed. I'd never had the chance to _ask_ one.

"Well, I wasn't going to leave him out in the corridor!" said Leon, growing defensive again.

"Why didn't you just bring him here?" asked my former acquaintance, head still cupped in his hands. He sounded tired, less than murderous, now. I suspected he had changed since last I knew him. Of course he had. Who was I kidding? Given a year, anyone would change . . . could change . . . hell, what did it matter, anyway?

"I wanted to make sure he wasn't drunk," said Leon, a little sullen.

"Why would he have chosen _your_ apartment to arrive at while drunk?" asked my former acquaintance, now sounding somewhat annoyed by Leon's antics.

"I'd given him my address earlier," said Leon, and I found the high pitch of his voice suddenly quite humorous. I snickered a little bit, but was, this time, careful to keep the sound under my breath and as far from audible as possible.

"Why did you give him your address?" asked my former acquaintance.

"We met at a meeting," said Leon, and I snickered a little again, though managing -- barely -- to restrain myself from an outright gale of laughter. Oh, it was all so _funny_.

"A meeting for what, Leon?" said my former acquaintance, beginning to sound a little testy. I knew the danger signs of his bad moods . . . or, at least, I once had. Now I wasn't quite certain. But I figured that he was probably getting a little frustrated with Leon by now. I would have been, at any rate.

"I can't tell you that," Leon hissed, in a low tone. "You know I can't tell you that."

"All right, all right," said my former acquaintance, trying to appease Leon's budding hysteria . . . and I began to snicker once more, remembering the treatment for hysteria, as it had once been. "Hysterical paroxysm" and all that . . . heh, heh. I found it quite amusing, though I knew it was juvenile of me. "So you can't tell me where you met him or why you gave him your address, but . . ."

"He gave me the address so that I could talk with him later," I said, suddenly.

"Why did he think you'd want to talk with him later?" my former acquaintance asked me. I felt a bit like a mouse in the gaze of a snake . . . rapt, unable to make a move. Mice probably didn't feel this utterly dumb and idiotic, though. More likely just trapped.

"Well, I'd liked the speech he'd read at the meeting I met him at," I said.

"Ah," said my former acquaintance. "Can you remember what the speech was about?"

I could almost hear Leon telling my former acquaintance that he couldn't tell him what the speech was about, but I ignored the feeling and went cheerily on ahead, full steam:

"Oh, no, I don't remember a think," I said. "Not one word about it. But it was a fery good speech, I remember that much."

"Leon," prompted my former acquaintance gently, "do you remember what the speech was about?"

"What does this have to do with this . . . this idiot's condition?" said Leon, considerably agitated right now.

"Just tell me, please," said my former acquaintance in a soothing voice. "Tell me what your speech was about."

"Gardening," said Leon sullenly. I could hardly believe my ears.

"And what about gardening do you think your . . . er, friend here found so enrapturing?"

"Fucked if I know," said Leon crassly. "Why won't you just tell me what's wrong with him, instead of cross-examining me? I didn't kill anyone," he said, "if that's what you're after."

"All right, all right," said my former acquaintance, still trying to pacify Leon, who I had begun to notice was a rather high-strung man for one so young.

"He's got a fever," continued my former acquaintance. "I'd say take him home -- back to his own home, that is . . ."

At which Leon flushed a bright, altogether inexplicable red.

". . . and then leave him to heal. I can't do much of anything about it, unless you'd like me to ring up a priest or an old religious woman to say prayers for him."

"I'm not religious," I said, feeling particularly sullen, though for no particular reason at all. Nothing seemed to have logic behind it, not then. Everything seemed disconnected from itself, close to being nonsensical but not quite so . . . magical, the way things presented themselves to me. Unreal, but at the same time superreal. As if they existed in their own rationality, their own world, by their own set of rules, independent of this world and its rules, entirely unfettered by the demands of the mortal coil . . .

"Well," said Leon. "Let's go, then."

"All right," I said, and stood up, still weak and wobbly on my feet. Leon sighed and offered me his shoulder to lean on for the walk home.

"So which street is your apartment on?" he asked.

"I . . . can't remember," I admitted. "Well, I _do_ remember, but I don't know how in the world I got to your flat from there."

Leon groaned. "Oh, fantastic. If only we could get ahold of that girl you're staying with . . ."

"I told you about Sonia?" I said, surprised. I didn't remember doing so.

"Yes, at the meeting," he said irritably.

"You didn't tell me he couldn't walk unsupported!" shouted my former acquaintance, and we turned back to look at him. It had begun to drizzle, and he stood out on the boardwalk in front of his door, an old newspaper -- for that was the only kind to be got in Alaska -- over his head in lieu of a hat.

"Well, now you know!" Leon shouted back, clearly in an ill temper, perhaps even in a worse mood than my former acquaintance, who seemed to have calmed down since I knew him, when he had been so volatile he was dangerous to be around.


	36. Chapter Eleven, part III

Moth is half-asleep, drowsing with his head on the desk, when a knock comes at the door. "Yes?" he calls, lifting his head off the desk.

"It's your friend again," says the butler's voice from the other side of the door.

Again? Moth doesn't remember anyone coming to visit him. But he's been so tired lately . . . he might just have forgotten . . . "Send him in," he says, loud enough for the butler to hear him, but not loud enough to wake the house.

"All right," says the butler.

And of all people, it's Charles who walks through the door. Charles. Imagine that, thinks Moth, imagine that.

Charles is one of his first memories; a fuzzy-outlined blur at first, then a pretty face, young, watching nervously from the doorway. But he barely remembers him as it is.

But judging by what Charles does once he walks in the door, he knows Stephen, and knows him very well.

Because Charles walks in and pauses just to the left of the door, and looks at him quietly for a moment.

Moth pushes his chair away from the desk, stands, and approaches Charles.

Charles looks at him, silent, and Moth looks at Charles, feeling more and more awkward by the second.

Then Charles sighs and says, "Moth."

"Yes?" says Moth, a little impatiently.

"I . . ." Charles's voice falters for a moment, and he looks down and away from Moth. Then he looks back up, making eye contact with Moth. "I wanted to talk to you, but Stephen was here last time and I . . . I just left."

Moth wants to ask who Stephen is, but he restrains himself, because he feels that he knows -- or that he should know, anyway. Instead, he asks, "What did you want to talk about?"

Charles looks up at him, silently -- Moth hadn't noticed how small Charles was before. And he realizes that he hasn't seen himself in a mirror for weeks. His hair must be getting long, he thinks.

Then Charles looks away. "Do you remember when I . . . when I came to visit you before?"

Moth shakes his head. "No," he says. "I don't."

Charles sighs and turns away, as if to go back out the door. "I'll just go then," he says, defeated. "If you don't remember, I'll just go."

But Moth _does_ remember -- he remembers a dream, a fuzzy recollection that may or may not have actually happened. "When?" he asks. "When were you here?"

"Not long ago," Charles says. "Wednesday, late at night."

Ah, _now_ he remembers! -- he remembers Charles's eyes, reflecting the candlelight, shining in the dark. Like brilliant stars, light revealing itself to him through the endless, depthless night.

"Yes," he says, simply. "I remember."

Charles throws his arms around Moth, hugging him close. "I," he says, then hesitates. "It's so good to have you back," he says, lamely.

"I missed you," says Moth, and, hesitating, he puts his arms around Charles; Charles only embraces him more tightly.

He notices how much shorter the other boy is; standing, he's almost a head shorter than Moth is.

"I was waiting for you to come back," Moth says, looking for a way to fill the silence.

"Why?" says Charles.

"Exactly," says Moth.

Charles laughs -- his voice sounds a little too tense, Moth notices -- and says, "That's why I like you."

"Why?" asks Moth, not unaware of the symmetry of the conversation they were having.

"Because you're confusing," Charles says. "And you don't know the difference between right and wrong because you're not sure if things can be divided up like that. Because you puzzle me, and I want to know why you are the way you are. Because you operate on a different set of rules." He lets go of Moth and looks up into the other boy's face, searching for something there. "Is that enough reasons?"

"I don't think you needed any reasons," Moth says.

Charles hugs him again; Moth feels safe.

Then Charles steps back, sighs, checks his watch. "I should leave," he says. "I should have been home an hour ago."

"What are you _doing_?" Moth asks, suddenly a little concerned for the safety of the younger boy, even though he's sure Charles can take care of himself. Really. He is.

"Going home," Charles says, smiling. He walks towards the door. "I'll be back."

"When?" says Moth.

But he asks in vain, because by then Charles is gone.

And Moth should really try and get some sleep.

So he does.


	37. Chapter Eleven, part IV

Leon dragged me back to his apartment, which I now had the full chance to observe. And observe it, I did, while leaning against the wall (he was doing something else, which I wasn't too concerned with at the time).

It was the epitome of the poor student's apartment . . . well, not quite. I had read _Crime and Punishment_ some time before, thanks to Petrov's meager library -- and I had, in fact, stolen his copy of the book; I hoped he wouldn't begrudge me it -- and I corrected myself. Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov's apartment was the epitome of poor student housing . . . but damn, did Leon's apartment come a close second.

The floors were of wooden boards, covered with rugs here and there, all of which were threadbare, rag-market little things, evidently purchased for cheap or gotten for free. The best thing one could say of the floor was that it was well-made, for the floor of such a poor apartment.

The wallpaper was peeling; evidently, Leon didn't care for such things. There were stains on the visible parts of the floor, some of which were rather suspicious-looking. The walls had posters and papers and wall-hangings of every possible type pinned to them; I suspected that these were in lieu of insulation less than as items of note, for some of them appeared of little consequence to me.

There were cheap pieces of furniture scattered about the one room I could see; the couch I had lain on, which I now saw was low to the ground, slumped, and old, a few mismatched chairs, a folded stack of blankets of which at least the top one appeared to have been darned many times over, a low table, and a poorly-built bookcase that might have been made by Leon's own hand, though perhaps that was misjudging the poor man -- I didn't know if he had any carpentry skills at all, much less if he was a_ good_ carpenter.

There was a kitchen area to the left of where I was standing, with a rough, cheap-looking stove whose chimney seemed on the verge of collapse, the low table, and a few cushions scattered about the table instead of chairs. There were a few thin, leaning cabinets standing next to the stove; I suspected these, as well, might have been built by Leon. In any case, they looked as if they had been perpetrated by the same hand that had built the bookcase; they looked sturdy enough, but they leaned slightly to one side.

The living area, perhaps better described as a sitting area cum living area, held the couch, which was backed up against a wall, the mismatched chairs, which were arranged in a rough circle so that they suggested a meeting or gathering had been held by people sitting in them, the stacked blankets, and the bookcase.

Leon came back in from the hall and indicated one of the mismatched chairs. "Go ahead, have a seat," he said irritably.

I sat down in the chair. It was similar to the chair I had sat in at my former acquaintance's medical practice, yet different. It was shabby, like many chairs I had seen. Rips in the fabric covering it had been carefully hand-sewn back up by a clearly inexperienced hand -- most likely Leon himself, seeing as this was his apartment. It could have been someone else, though.

The fabric was patchwork, with stains appearing here and there on it; the repairs were still immediately obvious, being that they had been done in a coarse, harshly colored thread, and that the stitches were inexpert, some large where others were neat and uniform.

While I was occupied by his chair -- which was fairly interesting, honestly -- Leon was unfolding two blankets from the pile and laying them out on the floor. When I broke my fixation with the chair and looked up at him, I took notice of his activity and asked what, precisely, he was doing.

"You," he said stiffly, "are sleeping on the _floor_."

"It's cold on the floor," I said, obstinate and, I must admit, somewhat childish.

"It's good for your back," he said, fussing with the makeshift bed. "I mean, sleeping on a hard surface is," he added, clarifying his original, rather confusing, statement.

"Really," I said, absorbed in the chair again.

"Yes," he said.

"How do you know that?" I asked, surreptitiously sniffing delicately at the chair. It smelled vaguely pleasant, with overtones of wet dog: a sort of cinnamon scent, with hints of well-aged book, ink, and salt, with a stronger presence of a damp, wet smell, as if the book were embodying the concept of an overly humid day.

Then I smelled myself. I didn't smell very nice, at all. I smelled like sweat, with vaguely disturbing sick overtones and surprising sweetness where I'd spilled something on myself some days prior. I knew how I normally smelled -- a little rank, but rather nice, considering: human, sweaty, but with rather pleasant notes, including, mystifyingly, a hint of vanilla and pine needles.

I swung part of my hair in front of my face to smell it. It had more or less the same smell as the rest of me, but it was a little oilier, with stronger overtones of pine than my skin. Sonia's hair smelled softly of pine needles too, I remembered suddenly.

Leon stared at me, and it was a moment before I realized it, because my hair was still hanging in my face. "What the _hell_ are you doing?" he asked.

"I . . . uh . . ." I stammered, then went with the only semi-reasonable option. "I can't even explain. Don't ask."

"Fine." He sighed, kicking at the edge of one blanket. "I won't ask, you won't tell."

"Don't ask, don't tell. Got it," I said, parroting his words rather mindlessly because I had absolutely no idea what to say next.

"Go ahead and lie down if you like," he said, walking past me to the door. He paused and checked his watch. "It's getting late; I should be back fairly soon."

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"To find Sonia so I can get you out of my apartment," he said, evidently gritting his teeth -- or at least that's how I visualized it, for by the time he finished that sentence, he was halfway out the door, and by the time I'd finished visualizing his gritting teeth, he was gone with the door closed behind him.

I sighed, stood up, and went to lie down on the blankets. It was cold on the floor, yes, and I pulled one of the blankets over me to combat that. But I had slept in worse places in my long walks in the wilderness, compared to which sleeping on a floor (with _blankets_, even) was sheer paradise.

Normally I would have bothered to undress before trying to sleep, but I was too tired, and I was in an apartment that wasn't mine; I didn't want to potentially embarrass Leon. And besides, it was cold. I wanted as much protection from the chill as possible, so I kept my clothes on. I hadn't brought nightclothes with me, in any case -- why would I have? I had gotten into this by fainting on his doorstep, after all.

I lay awake for a while, staring at the ceiling in the darkening room. Leon hadn't bothered to light a candle before he left, and now it was obvious just how late it really was; the overcast sky outside had hidden the fact from me when I went outside with Leon earlier.

Mostly I thought of nothing at all, and then time . . . time became strange. Everything slipped into some nebulous otherworld, it seemed, where the very laws of physics didn't seem to apply, or applied in different manners, or where the laws themselves were different.

I saw the walls distorting around me, undulating softly in an unseen breeze, then breathing in and out, gently, as if the very building itself were trying to soothe me to sleep; I could hear as it drew breath and released it, a gentle rushing sound like the wind, but weirdly organic at the same time that it was artificial, mechanical.

Many times I saw Leon return from his trip, sometimes with his outline blurred as if he proceeded very quickly in and out of the flat. I heard his voice, speaking to me.

And I saw the outlines of the room begin to change, the rhythm of their breath destroyed as strange angles appeared where the boards of the floor met the wall, and yet the two remained perpendicular to each other; I saw motes of dust go floating calmly by me, engaged in startling, beautiful conversation.

From there I slipped into what now seem strange dreams, but whose veracity I could never bring myself to call into question, and still cannot fully doubt now, for the places and people I saw were as those I knew from my life before the distortions, perfectly, perfectly real.

I saw a woman, tall, with an elegant face and straight posture; she bent to take my hand and raise me up from the ground. We ran, together, through a warping, distorted city that I faintly recognized as my former home, the place that had decided I was not worthy of it, though I had committed no crime.

I met Raskolnikov for dinner; he was as I remembered him being, striking. A handsome young man, resembling myself somewhat with soft, thoughtful brown eyes, but with lighter hair than I, a true brown color rather than the dark brownish black color of my own hair; but thin, as I was, and a little taller than average, just as I was. He seemed nervous and high-strung, though, almost ill; he seemed like a reflection of myself as I might have been.

I met a beautiful young woman, who was incomparable to my Sonia in any way, but whose features nevertheless struck me, though superficially she was rather plain. She was of average height for a woman of her age, with a stocky frame, though she seemed a little underfed. Her hair was a darkish color that I could not fully make out, but I remember her eyes very clearly, for they were a strange greyish-blue in color, which struck me, for it reminded me of the color of the sea when it seemed like a sullen woman with her own personality. My former acquaintance had told me, aboard ship and dreamily, many such tales of the sea, how she was like a woman and must be treated as such, or she would abuse the man who so abused her. The young woman and I talked for what seemed hours, and then she left me; I felt wronged, empty, and I wished that I could have set out to meet her.

I wandered alone through a city that I had once known, but whose name I did not remember, where the buildings stood taller than any I had seen, but which seemed empty of life. The streets were quiet and clean, which was somewhat refreshing, though eerily reminiscent of certain places I had passed through in my wanderings of the uninhabited places of Alaska, where the silence was haunting and I could not pause for a strange creeping, eerie sensation that overtook me.

I lay in bed with Sonia on a cold winter's night; I saw flames leaping and dancing outside our window, but I was not afraid of fire, for my Sonia lay in my arms, warm and half-asleep as I was, the two of us together, perhaps for forever, her hair, as dark as it had been when I had met her, spilling loose across my arm.

I saw terrible things as well -- terrible, indescribable things that seemed to shift form as I considered how, how their existence was possible under a merciful God's rule, but who seemed civilized, if wild and merry. They reminded me of students I had met when I was a student myself: decent enough, but with a tendency to wild bacchanalia. But I feared them, for their forms offended my eye, though their voices were sweet on my ear, and I considered them as my brothers.

I met a thin, burningly intelligent man in the streets of a desolate city -- he was blond of hair and blue of eye, young but with a desperate light in his eye. Behind him ran a horde of bizarrely-formed things which I could not see clearly. He seemed too pale, and something of his aspect frightened me, frightened me deeply, because there was something about him that was wrong, wrong as the aspects of the creatures I had known earlier, in some previous life, seen through some previous eye. Yet I knew not precisely what made him so frightening to me, except that there was something off-kilter about him.

I remember waking -- or seeming to wake, not sure which it was even at the time -- and leaving the building, realizing that I'd never been in Alaska at all, that that had been a foolish fantasy of mine. The streets were full of people in a terrible panic, people in ecstasies of ultimate terror which I could not understand the origin of, while dark clouds roiled overhead and fog oozed through the streets, eerie and almost unholy considered as a scene. I had a mission -- I had a place I needed to get to -- but I knew I could never complete it, not with this terrible occurrence happening all around me.

I floated high above a city -- for once a healthy, lovely city, bright and alive below me -- as I discussed various matters with my companions. We made various very enlightening comments to each other, but eventually we had to say our adieus to each other, and one by one we stepped off the edge of our eagle's perch, and we fell to the ground, so far below it took my breath away merely to look, and I closed my eyes tightly all the way down.

And then I realized that Leon was there, kneeling beside me. The blanket had been stripped off of me, but he had not dared to remove any article of my clothing, of which fact I was glad. He dipped what seemed a scrap of cloth into a bucket sitting beside him on the floor and draped it over my forehead; water ran back into my hair, but it felt wonderfully, wonderfully cool. I felt as if I were afire with creative genius, I longed to create a work of artistic beauty and novelty, but I knew that, first, I needed to sleep, and first I needed to rest.

When I woke -- when I truly awoke, though I do not know how long I spent wandering that other world, and I do not know how I knew when I had crossed back from that world to this -- I was weary, though I had been resting, and I felt as if I needed to sleep.

Leon was sitting in the chair nearby -- the one I remembered sitting in, so many lifetimes ago, when I had been such a different man -- watching me as if he were a hawk and I were his prey. Or as if I were dangerous and he wanted to be sure he had control over me. I couldn't sort out which of the two it was.

"So, you're finally awake," he said, yawning and arising from the chair. He stretched luxuriously.

I coughed and levered myself up a little from the floorboards. "How long?"

"Goddamned if I was counting," he said, carelessly. "You looked like you were in some pretty interesting places, though."

"I'm sick, you bastard," I said -- it was the first thing that came to mind. "Why didn't you get me to a doctor?"

"Look," said Leon with a sigh. "When you started -- talking to people who weren't there, I went back to my friend, Doctor Hockley -- who, by the way, says that you and he had a passing acquaintance once?"

"Yes, we did," I muttered, staring intently at the floor. "A long time ago. We're no longer in contact."

Leon shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me. Anyway, when all that started happening, I went to him. You'll never guess what was actually happening to you."

"What?" I said, hating to take his bait but wanting to anyway. "What was actually happening?"

"You were on drugs, straitlace," he said, grinning.

"What?" I said.

"You are the most _straightedged_ college kid I've ever met," he said. "You were on drugs, and that meant it was funny because you don't seem like the type to do drugs, get my drift?"

"Actually, I'm not a college student," I protested.

"Really."

"I only made it through high school," I admitted.

"Well, you fooled me," he said.

"Did you find Sonia?" I asked, suddenly remembering why he had left the flat in the first place.

"Yes," he said, "and you mistook her for a tentacle monster."

When I heard him utter those immortal words, I knew instantly that my life, while it might reach great heights of gaiety and great depths of depression, would never be quite the same, for I had heard those words of unsurpassable merit, and now I could die a fulfilled man.

"Could you repeat that?" I said.

"You _mistook_ your _girlfriend_ for a _tentacle monster_."

"Thank you," I said, already mirthfully short of breath, before fairly dissolving into helpless laughter.

"I don't understand you," said Leon, quite reasonably. "I don't understand you at _all_."

"Neither do I," I said, snickering, "neither do I."

When at last I stopped laughing, I asked him, "Where's Sonia, then?"

"I told her to wait out in the hall," he said. "So you wouldn't have a little breakdown again."

"Ah." I paused for a moment. "Could you, uh, let her in? I'd hate for her to think I . . ."

"That you're actually convinced she's a tentacle monster?" He grinned and tipped an imaginary hat to me. "Indeed I could."

"And how did you know when the drugs would stop effecting me?" I wondered aloud as Leon walked over to the door to let Sonia in.

"When you'd come down from your trip?" he asked. "I asked your friend Hockley what to expect, and he told me." He grinned.

"So I wasn't effected for long," I said, mostly to confirm to myself that I was parsing his words correctly.

"No," he said patiently. "You were on dyphenhydramine; dyphenhydramine highs don't last very long, he told me, and you were already going into a trip when you showed up on my doorstep, so it was only a question of waiting."

"Can you . . . can you translate that, please?" I asked. "Into plain English?"

He sighed and rubbed his forehead with the flat of one hand. "Look," he said, "you were on a deliriant drug, which is a word I don't expect you to know that means it causes delirium in people who take it. Neither Hockley nor myself could figure out _why_ someone would want to dose you with it, but luckily you were just really heading into the full effects when I went to see him, so he told me it wouldn't be long until it quit effecting you. And there was nothing I could do to stop it, so all I could do was wait for it to stop on its own."

I blinked, trying to take in all the information he had just bestowed upon me in one quick rush. "All right. Well, that makes a _little_ more sense."

"Good," he sighed, and opened the door. He leaned out into the hall and said, pitching his voice low, "Sonia? You can come in now."

"Really?" I heard Sonia's voice coming from the hall, and I felt reassured, because I knew that she was there. "Then I will."

And she walked in through the door. I sat up more fully on the floor, and I looked at her as she walked in.

She was the same as always; lovely, petite, and blonde, with beautiful green eyes. She didn't seem to have chosen a particularly complimentary outfit for her figure that day; it was almost striking in its plainness.

Instead of her more usual bright colors -- reds, yellows, greens -- in elegant cuts and fabrics, she wore a comparatively drab grey dress, simple and plain with a design of pink roses on the skirt. She had a shawl thrown around her shoulders, as if it were cold outside, and ragged lace-up boots on her feet; she carried a package in her hands.

When she spotted me sitting on the floor, she handed off her package to Leon and rushed to me, exclaiming, "Yuri, you . . ." She glanced briefly at Leon. ". . . you little _scamp_!" she said, evidently unable to use the word of her choice. "Wandering off like that and not telling me where you were going." She embraced me, and I returned the embrace, though a little gingerly. "So what happened to you?" she asked, releasing me from her embrace and looking at me in a slightly critical manner.

"I'm not exactly sure myself," I said. "Leon tells me that, after he consulted with . . . a doctor friend of his, he discovered that I was dosed with some kind of drug."

"Dyphenhydramine, to be precise," Leon said, interrupting.

"Why would you do that?" she asked, now serious in tone.

"I didn't do it, Sonia," I told her. "Someone else did."

Her eyes narrowed and her eyebrows drew downwards into a somewhat frightening expression of anger. "And you wouldn't know who it was, would you?"

"No," I told her.

"He fainted on my doorstep," said Leon, again interrupting us. "And he doesn't remember a thing for three days before that, so he's not being of any help at the moment."

"You're sure it was _just_ dyphenhydramine he was dosed with?" said Sonia, a bit more sharply than was prudent, turning on Leon.

"Of course not," said Leon, taken a little aback. "My friend -- Doctor Hockley; I believe Will actually met him once -- doesn't have the facilities to test Yuri . . . on that matter," he finished lamely.

"Well, I'll find out who did it," said Sonia, now fierce in an almost comical way -- remember, she was not a large or particularly intimidating woman in any way. "I'll find out who did it and what they dosed my boy with, and then . . ."

"Then you'll get the slimy bastard," observed Leon disinterestedly.

Sonia gaped at him; I was too busy trying to keep track of what exactly was going on.

"It's what they always say at this point," said Leon, waving his hand dismissively. "You'll probably never catch him."

"Do you know what I do for a living?" hissed Sonia, straightening up to her normally less-than-impressive full height, which now seemed far more threatening than usual. "I _will_ find out."

"No, you won't, my dear lady," said Leon, coolly. "And do you know what your, ah, consort does in his free time?"

Sonia's eyes narrowed and her lips thinned; I could see that she was getting ready to unleash her rage upon whoever happened to get in her way.

"He's a communist, darling," said Leon, voice smooth and charming. "That's a treasonable offense, even if it's just a . . . college boy's pastime. He could be hung if he were caught."

"So you're saying someone tried to murder him," said Sonia, beating Leon to his point. He looked at her for a moment, surprised.

"Yes," he said curtly, "that is what I was getting at."

"I think you've underestimated me," she said, then turned and beckoned to me. "Come on, Yuri. Let's go."

I rose from the floor and followed her out the door; as she passed him, she snatched the package she had handed to him from his hands. As I passed Leon, he sighed and shrugged, as if to say, "What can you do?"

Oh, how I hated him for treating my Sonia that way.

Once we had gotten out into the street -- where it was a surprisingly decent day, for Alaska, anyway -- Sonia turned to me and let out a string of invective which didn't surprise me in the least (though I believe it would have shaken Leon to the core) before lapsing into silence for a good five minutes as we trudged through the almost-empty streets back to the flat we shared.

"You know," she said, suddenly, as we turned a corner, "the two of us make a great pair."

"How so?" I said. I was cold. Apparently, when I appeared on Leon's doorstep, something had occurred to me to prevent my bringing my overcoat along with me. I hoped that I hadn't lost it all together; it had become rather dear to me.

"You're tall, not very pale anymore," she noted with displeasure, "you're thin and you dress shabbily, you look pitifully deranged with that white streak in your hair."

"It is not a streak," I protested weakly. "It is a _forelock_."

"Sure it is," she said. "But you look woeful, and then you're with me; short, pretty, thin, blonde, well-dressed. It's the contrast that makes us look good together." She grinned up at me. "We could fight crime."

I looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, before asking, "Perhaps you could draw the two of us together, then?" Sonia had a small talent for drawing, which she could have parleyed into a minor career if she so chose.

"Oh, all right," she said a little grumpily. "You'll have to sit still, and then I'll have to do myself in front of a mirror." She giggled. "I expect it'll be quite fun, actually. Come on, let's get home, I can't wait to get a start on that now that you've mentioned it." She tugged me along by the wrist; we ran down the streets side by side, breathless, until we reached the building our flat was in, which we stopped in front of, gasping for breath.

She grinned up at me, giggling a little. "Let's get inside," she said, still short of breath, and I agreed with her.

After she dragged me upstairs, she fetched some paper and a pencil and set madly to sketching me, considering each line what seemed like ten or eleven times before finally committing it to paper.

While she sketched me, I was, of course, obliged to hold still -- or at least I felt that I was. I used the time as productively as I could, observing the features of the flat in as much detail as I could absorb.

The couch on which I slept (and, before waking up on Leon's doorstep, I had stopped sleeping as much as perhaps I should) was, though dilapidated, still in good condition. (Even though, like so many couches I had had the luck to encounter -- even when I _wasn't_ in Alaska -- it had more than a few suspicious stains. But those could be hidden, or reduced in severity. So it was all good, really.)

There were clothes hung on the walls off of nails, which created a sort of effect that didn't seem to be trying too hard, but which was still rather charming. Most of the clothes hanging on the walls were Sonia's, as I was still somewhat uncomfortable living in her apartment -- even though I'd begun to think of it somewhat as my flat as well.

I studied her clothes -- they were there, and that made them fair game for looking at. Being looked at. Whichever, really.

There were quite a few skirts hanging from nails, looking quite precariously perched; they were mostly long, pretty affairs in subdued colors. These, I guessed to be her town clothes; the bright, shorter skirts must be her, er, work clothes. By elimination, of course.

Near the door, there was an obviously well-worn coat hanging from a hook; it looked like an old, battered duster or trenchcoat, but I had never seen Sonia wear it. It had obviously been repaired many times, but these repairs, contrary to those on Leon's blanket and chair, had been done by a hand that was, if not expert, at least practiced in the art of sewing: the stitches were tiny and neat. The only way I could see them -- they were almost invisible against the dark fabric -- was the obvious ex-rip they were repairing. Ex-rip because it was now no longer a rip, but an awkward, after-the-fact seam.

"Hold still," said Sonia. "I can't draw you very well when you keep moving."

I apologized.

"That's better," she said, and returned to sketching me.


	38. Chapter Eleven, part V

"One, two, three -- turn, that's it, Molly -- one, two, three..."

It was the third day in a row they'd been trying to teach her to waltz, and Molly didn't think she was getting any better at it in the least. She couldn't seem to stop tripping over her own feet, and though the dance instructor was resolutely cheery, her partner was beginning to look a bit strained.

But, she thought, at least her new clothes were nice, which was _something_ to be happy about. They were nothing like the old dresses she'd been accustomed to wearing, old, rather dowdy things. The skirt was a grey tweed fabric, which was plain in itself, but with a pretty black lace petticoat which peeked out an inch or so from under it, with the whole ensemble short enough to show a few inches of her new leather button-up shoes, which she was particularly proud of; no one back at Miss Tanith's estate had owned a pair like them. And to go with the skirt, a white blouse, with embroidery of flowers at the cuffs, and a grey vest -- even a fine dark grey jacket to go over all on cold days.

"All right," called the instructor, clapping her hands, "that's all, girls!"

Molly thanked her partner -- a tall, rather gawky girl with vague eyes -- and stepped off to the side, waiting for the other students to collect their things and leave. She still hadn't gotten used to the rhythm of the day at the Laboratories -- it didn't make any _sense_ to her. She had to be awake at an odd time of morning, and in bed too early at night. She never saw the same students twice in any of her classes, and she couldn't even figure out what schedule she was supposed to have -- she was escorted personally to all her classes by Worth, who remained silent on the matter.

"Molly?" said the instructor as Molly turned to leave.

"Yes, ma'am?" asked Molly, politely turning back to face her.

"You _must_ learn how to be a lady," said the instructor, clutching her hands in front of her. She was a matronly, rather small woman, dressed simply as befitted a teacher. "You _must, _Molly; I know your other coursework must be terribly interesting, but you simply _must_ pay more attention during class."

"I will, ma'am," said Molly, who _had_ been paying attention, but who was beginning to feel rather more clumsy than her classmates, as if she had two left feet.

"Good," said the instructor, almost wistfully. "Well, hurry along then, I wouldn't want to keep you."

Molly hurried out of the classroom. As usual, Worth was standing, silently, by the door, waiting for her.

"Sorry," Molly said. "The instructor wanted to talk to me."

"So how's your waltz coming?" asked Worth, striding purposefully along the corridor.

"Oh, I'm not getting much better, but I'm not getting any _worse_," said Molly. "And where are we going?" Worth had taken a turn Molly was unfamiliar with, and now Molly hadn't the faintest idea where they were.

"I'm taking you to see your mentor," said Worth, making a sharp turn. "Which means we're leaving this school section and actually going into the Laboratories proper. Good thing you're all dressed up."

Molly followed Worth silently through the winding corridors until Worth paused outside an office and knocked on the door. "Doctor!" Worth banged on the door. "Open up!"

The door opened, revealing a man of just over average height, with shaggy, longish blond hair and blue eyes. "Yes, Worth?" he said. "I'm a busy man, you know."

"Well, they finally found an apprentice for you," said Worth, brightly. "Come on, Molly, at least say hello. This is the Doctor; you'll be working for him."

Molly stepped forward and shook the Doctor's hand. "How do you do, sir," she murmured, staring at the floor.

"Nice to meet you, Molly," he said, smiling. Though he was a good bit taller than Molly, he wasn't intimidating in the least, though there was a sad, introspective, melancholy look in his eyes that made Molly wonder a little about what had happened to him in the past.

"You can go now, Worth," said the Doctor. "I'm sure Molly can find her way back on her own. Come on in," he added to Molly. "I'm afraid it's a bit of a mess, I haven't had a chance to clean things up yet."

Instead of asking what had happened, Molly remained silent, but slipped past the Doctor and into his office without a word. It was a cramped little place, cluttered with papers, folders, and books spilling out of shelves and the file cabinet squatting in the corner and onto the floor and, it seemed, any flat surface in the room. He removed some of the clutter from a chair, transferred it to the desk, and indicated for her to sit down. Once she had, he himself took a seat at the desk, shuffling some papers around for a minute. "Now, what am I supposed to do with you?" he asked.

"I . . . I don't know, sir," Molly replied demurely.

"It was a rhetorical question," he said.

"What does that mean, sir?" she asked.

"It means you didn't have to answer," he said. She'd expected him to snap at her. "And you don't have to call me sir all the time. I prefer Doctor."

"All right, Doctor, whatever you like," she said.

The look on his face faded suddenly -- he looked far away and sad all of a sudden, and Molly wished that she could take back what she'd just said, even though she knew it probably wasn't her fault anyway. She could almost see him as a boy, no older than her, with blond hair, cut short by his mother with her sewing scissors. A working-class boy, she was sure.

"Where are you from, Doctor?" she asked, suddenly.

"Germany," he answered, as if in a dream. "The southern part. I doubt you'd know it. But I came here when I was a little older than you. I hardly remember Germany." He trailed off, staring past her at the wall of the office so fixedly that she almost turned to look at whatever was so fascinating there.

"You're from the Outlands, aren't you?" he asked.

"Yes, Doctor," she answered.

"Do you miss it?"

"Sometimes I do," she said truthfully, "but mostly I've been so busy here that I haven't got the time to miss it."

"It's like that, isn't it?" he said abstractly, keeping his gaze fixed on the spot on the wall. "It's better for you, though, you're young enough to forget the things you lose -- it doesn't hurt quite as much when you lose something, because you have all the time left in the world to you. You're still young, you have your whole life ahead of you -- but what kind of life will it be, I wonder?" He sighed. "Never mind. I suppose it's just the wrong sort of day for me." He laughed, and his sudden gaiety made Molly suspicious. "I'll show you the lab and then pack you off home, how about it, hmm?"

"Sounds wonderful, Doctor," Molly said dutifully.

"Oh, you don't actually _think_ that, do you?" he said, taking an interrupting tone.

"Well," Molly admitted, "I think it'd be rather interesting."

"Good," observed the Doctor. "I thought you were going to be the boring kind. Well, it's just the next door down, how about we go."

Molly tagged along behind him to the lab, which was a rather large room in her experience, well-lit with the gaslamps turned up all the way, showing off the well-kept counters which weren't the cleanest in the world, but which were neat enough to satisfy the Doctor, apparently. A few papers lay scattered on a work surface in the middle of the room, as if they had been cast down in the middle of some task.

"What happened?" asked Molly.

"What do you mean, what happened?" asked the Doctor.

"Well, you said you hadn't yet gotten things cleaned up in your office," she said, determined to continue with that line of questioning no matter how unladylike it was.

"One of my close friends died not too long ago," said the Doctor, tersely.

"Oh." Molly fixed her gaze on a spot on the far wall near one of the gaslamps, so that she wouldn't have to look at the Doctor.

"Don't act so guilty," he said gently. "It wasn't your fault, and we're all still a little melancholy over it. His name was Liam Hamilton," he added, a note of sadness in his voice. "I think you'd have liked him. Fine man."

"Wish I could have met him," said Molly. The Doctor seemed like the kind of fellow around whom she could drop her pretensions of high breeding. She was, after all, one step up from a street child.

"I wish you could have met him as well," said the Doctor. "He'd have had a lot to teach you, really."

"I trust you on that one," said Molly.

"Good," said the Doctor, and fell silent.

"So when will you start . . . teaching me?" asked Molly.

"You've already started learning, Molly," said the Doctor, smiling down at her in a way that wasn't condescending like it usually was on adults, but in a friendly manner. "Once you said hello, I knew you were going to be worth my time."

"Thank you, Doctor," said Molly, touched.

"Welcome to the Laboratories," said the Doctor, grinning widely. "Shall I show you around?"


	39. Chapter Eleven, part VI

Revolutionaries tend to die young. I knew that well enough from my schoolboy days, which seemed oddly long ago for events that had transpired only a few years before. Robespierre at thirty-six was the one that stuck with me the most: if my life's trajectory was to be anything similar to his, if I were to die at the same age . . . my life was already half over. A little more, actually. At age nineteen, I was midway through my life. It was a sobering thought -- at an age when many other young men were dallying with women, I was in the position of a man much older than myself, looking down an increasingly short lane into Death's eyes.

Sonia teased me about these notions, but always gently, affectionately. At least I'd leave a handsome corpse. Though probably a maimed one, considering what typically happens to revolutionaries who die young. Those who make it to die of natural causes in old age are, though not as handsome as they once were, at least physically intact for burial.

But, even though my life would likely end unusually early, I had ten years left before me. Almost four hundred _thousand_ days at my disposal.

It was an exhilarating prospect at first: four hundred thousand is a large number. But I quickly realized the truth: as long a time as it might seem, I, in actuality, had nine years left before me. And those nine years would be devoted to the cause; working to further it.

It is one of the great truths I discovered then: when one is engaged in the pursuit of a single thing, when all else vanishes before its unstoppable importance, days fly past like hours, and weeks like days. Time softens and blurs together into many days spent in small tasks all building to a final conclusion. And when at last one reaches the conclusion, one realizes how huge an endeavor one embarked upon at the beginning, and one realizes how little one knew when one began . . . and how lucky one is to have made it to the end.

And so the years slipped by me, measured in increments of days. I worked alongside Leon, and the others, of course, but Leon and I were especially close as a working team. He wrote speeches, and I discovered that I had a talent for galvanizing crowds to action. Where Leon had power with words, I had charisma: power with people, which was what mattered most in the end. He, Sonia, and I became a tight, cohesive trio; Leon casting magic spells with words, Sonia smiling and exchanging unimportant words with important men, and myself becoming one of the mob, part of the common crowd. Though somewhat distasteful as an occupation, I found my work easy compared to Sonia's or Leon's: to each his own, I suppose.

Of course, we still met with the larger group. There were many other small groups like ours -- it was accepted as a necessary evil. But at the same time it was _more_ necessary that we remain part of the greater whole.

Eventually, though, it came to pass that my term in Alaska was over. Leon and Sonia arranged for passage on a steamer going south; as a now ex-convict, I was entitled to a place on the direct train going south (a line I hadn't been aware existed -- it didn't exist at all, officially).

I would arrive in Denver as I had left it -- alone.

And, because of the different speeds at which we would be traveling, I would arrive a few days before Leon and Sonia -- a precious few days alone with my beloved home city and her common people.

I had left Denver half-conscious, an innocent schoolboy without the slightest hint of a political leaning.

I would return to it alone, ten years older and, if not more wise, more experienced at least.

And this time I would come to it with high visions of its future. I would come with a plan for change, and I would not leave until I saw its success.

And so I left Alaska.


	40. Chapter Eleven, parts VII, VIII

The next time Molly saw the Doctor, he set her to a pedestrian, boring task: filing his papers away. It hardly required any thought at all, only sorting them by topic, which was given away by the title he had given it, or the note he had scribbled at the top of the page. She could barely read his handwriting, anyway, and it wouldn't surprise her if that was not only because it was messy: she suspected some of the letters were German.

She could read a little better now, but the Doctor's handwriting was especially difficult to read; scribbly and sprawling all over the page. He wrote in very small, neat letters, too, even when he was scribbling something down, which baffled her.

He had introduced her to a few of his friends; the short, dour-faced chemist named Hollis, who had turned out to be quite kind, the tall, pale geneticist, Ashley, who wasn't friendly but who wasn't mean, and Evie, the pretty woman who was married to Hollis. She remembered them mainly by their attributes, because they were grown-ups and she was a young girl, and also because she had cause to remember them as more than passing acquaintances in years to come.

She sighed and tapped another pile of papers into a neat stack, then filed them away in the corresponding folder. She was _bored_.

"Molly?" asked the Doctor.

"Yes?" she replied.

"Well, I was wondering if you were done yet," he said tentatively. "How is the filing going?"

"It's _boring_," said Molly, trying to be honest.

"How would you like to go to a party instead?" he asked. "My friend Hollis -- I introduced you to him a while ago, remember -- has asked me to go to one, and I'd like you to accompany me."

Molly didn't care about the specifics. "Well, _can_ I go?" she asked.

"Yes, of course," said the Doctor, sounding somewhat surprised by her questioning the notion. "I think Hollis would like to get to know you better, and I think that you really deserve a chance to get out of this abominable place." He laughed. "So how about it?"

"When should I be ready?" she asked politely.

"Well, it's gotten quite late already," he said, more than a little apologetic. "So we'd have to leave right now. But don't worry," he added. "None of us are much for formality, so you'll be fine coming as you are."

"All right," said Molly, who felt quite a bit awkward.

"Thank you," said the Doctor. "Hollis is waiting just outside."

She followed him out to where Hollis stood with his hands shoved into the pockets of his overcoat, head tilted back, staring up into the sky, which was a clearer blue than usual, so that it seemed almost bottomless.

"Hello, Hollis," said the Doctor. "Sorry I'm late, I had to collect some things, finish some filing -- you know how it is."

Hollis nodded, and looked at Molly. "You're ready to go as well?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Good," he said, smiling. "Let's go, then."

They arrived at Hollis' house shortly thereafter. The word that occurred to Molly to describe it was "nice" -- it was a grey house, with trees growing outside in the yard, whose leaves whispered gently in the wind as it began to pick up, intensifying from the gentle breeze Molly had seen stirring outside that morning.

Hollis took them inside, to the front parlor. She'd expected it to be a dim and dusty place, but it was a relatively bright and cheery parlor, as parlors went. The furniture didn't quite match, but the general effect was a pleasant one, of safety and calm.

No one else was there when they arrived, and so Hollis busied himself making tea; Molly wasn't terribly surprised by this. Not as surprised as she once would have been, at least.

As soon as the tea was ready, the Doctor and Hollis set to catching up with each other. Apparently they were close friends, but hadn't had a proper opportunity to talk in the past few days. Molly seated herself in an out-of-the-way armchair which was far too large for her, and busied herself watching the cat that slipped in and out of the room at intervals.

"So how have things been?" asked Hollis.

The Doctor sipped his tea. "Better, in general. Molly has helped me get some files in order, but other than that..." He shrugged.

"Well, no wonder," observed Hollis. "Your lab was a _mess_. I don't know how you got anything _done_."

"I managed," said the Doctor.

"But the new laws have been _very_ restrictive," Hollis said with the air of a man given the opportunity to turn the conversation to his true objective at last. "I don't know _how_ they expect us to work under these conditions."

A knock sounded at the door and Molly jumped to her feet out of long-standing habit.

"I'll answer it," said Hollis with a somewhat absent air, and he went to answer the door.

"I'm home!" announced a female voice.

"Oh, Evie," said Hollis. "I've just invited the Doctor and Molly over for tea -- have you met Molly yet?"

"Don't believe I have," answered the unfamiliar voice, and Molly heard someone taking off their shoes and coat in the entryway. "Let me put my things down."

After a moment, a woman stepped in through the door. Molly didn't recognize her at first, as she wasn't wearing dark pink as she had been at the time of their sole previous encounter. But Molly _did_ recognize her.

The woman smiled at Molly. "Don't I know you?" she asked.

"You're Miss Evelyn," said Molly promptly, and rose to her feet to curtsey.

"None of that," said Miss Evelyn, and stepped towards Molly to shake her hand. "You're that girl from the 'bus -- however did you end up here? And you can call me Evie," she added, almost as an afterthought. "Everyone does."

Molly sat back down, more than a little confused by the situation.

"Well, go on then," Evie prompted. "I _know_ you weren't with the Doctor on that 'bus. How did you get from there to here? And wouldn't you like another cup of tea?"

"Yes, I would," Molly admitted. Evie poured her a cup of tea and handed it to her, waiting for Molly to take a sip. Molly was contemplating how to begin her story when the Doctor began it for her.

"Well," he said, "I was with Thomas at the market not too long ago -- a few months back, actually -- and I saw Molly here, though of course I didn't know that was her name at the time, also at the market. I'd have thought nothing of it if her house hadn't collapsed at the moment." He shrugged, as if to excuse the house's collapsing. "I knew her, ah, mother, and so what else could I do but provide Molly shelter?"

"And then she tested into the Laboratories," Hollis said, breaking into the thread of the Doctor's story. "Highest score in seventy years, Evie, did you know?" His voice, Molly noticed, had, under a layer of kindness, a thin, panicked sound. As if he were terribly frightened of someone or something, but didn't dare to speak of it -- or was unable to speak of it. "Completely amazing -- I _had_ to invite her along tonight."

"Excuse me," said the Doctor. "Was there some sort of party occurring tonight that I wasn't informed of?"

Hollis grinned. "Well, not exactly. Moth invited himself along for a visit, and then there's a new man working with me at the Laboratories. Thought you'd like to meet him, maybe." He frowned for a moment. "And then Joachim decided he'd like to show up. Says he'd like to talk to you, doctor -- apparently he's got family back in Germany. Old family, of course..." Hollis trailed off, waiting for the Doctor to respond.

The Doctor sighed. "He expects me to know everyone in Germany," he said. "'S like expecting _you_ to know everyone in the capitol -- right down to the last Tom, Dick, or Harry."

"Charles," said Hollis suddenly. "That's his name -- the new man I've been working with. Smart. Reminds me of you a bit."

They lapsed into silence. Molly sipped at her tea -- though she hadn't touched it for a few minutes, it was still hot enough almost to burn her tongue. Another knock came at the door.

"Expect that's Moth," said Hollis with a pessimistic manner to him. "He's got a talent for showing up at exactly the wrong time."

Hollis rose and answered the door, spending a moment talking to someone outside.

"Well," he said, returning. "Moth's here."

A young man entered. Molly wasn't familiar with him, though she rather liked his long brown hair, of a length she didn't see often on men. He seemed friendly enough, though silent, and sat down in the armchair directly across from her.

A loud bang came on the door, and Hollis went back out to answer it. "Joachim!" he said, rather a bit loudly (or so Molly thought).

The next man to enter was a redhead, of slightly over average height (or perhaps of exactly average height, as Molly couldn't tell the difference very well). He would have been mainly unremarkable but for the scar on his temple, which had been stained with ink at some point in the past, so that it had the appearance of a tattoo. His nose appeared to have been broken at least once before.

After him followed a young man who appeared to Molly as if he couldn't be very old at all compared to the others -- she guessed that he was about twenty or so. "I'm Charles," he said amiably, nodding to the other people in the room before seating himself in one of the remaining unoccupied armchairs.

"Well, now that we're all here," said Hollis, with the barest trace of sarcasm in his voice. "I'll be back in a moment." He got up and left the room while Charles, Moth, and Joachim awkwardly poured themselves tea.

Hollis returned after only a moment out of the room, carrying a box that seemed to be quite heavy from the way he carried it. He nodded to the Doctor, who stood and moved the tea to another table. Hollis thumped the box down on the coffee table as soon as the Doctor had moved the tea off.

"Now," he said. "We were all friends of Liam Hamilton, I understand -- except you, Charles and Molly. For whatever reason, he entrusted me with the care of his possessions after his death, and _this--_" he thumped the box with his hand, and the table shuddered. "_This_ is a box of papers from his desk. I haven't sorted through any of them yet, and I thought, as we all knew him before he... left us, it would be a fine tribute to him if we... if we, his friends, had an opportunity to be the ones to sort through his papers." Hollis glanced around, seemingly uncomfortable.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Well, then," he said. "Let's not make any speeches."

Hollis opened the box and began sorting through the papers, violently energetic as he went about it, but totally silent at the same time. He was a curious little man, Molly thought. And he _was_ little -- he couldn't be much taller than Molly, who _was_ a bit taller than most girls her age were, but nevertheless that meant he was short for a full-grown man.

Sitting alone in the corner, curled up in the chair (which was more comfortable than she'd expected it to be by far), she slipped into a light doze. She woke when the Doctor asked her to fetch paper and pen for him.

"Molly? Would you please go get me some paper and a pen?" he asked.

"They're in the study," Hollis added as Molly got to her feet and threaded her way through the maze of chairs. "Down the hall, to your left."

Hollis' study was a bit of a mess, Molly thought, though it wasn't really her place to make such assertions. There were papers stacked on the desk, but no dust had been allowed to collect on any of the visible surfaces. It was a fastidiously clean place... by some standards.

She found some clean paper and a pen lying on the desk and went back to the parlor, where she gave them to the Doctor and sat back down in her chair, slipping into a doze again. She wondered fuzzily when, if ever, the Doctor would decide it was too late to be out and send her home.

She was awoken by a general commotion, which seemed to consist of a shouting match between Hollis and himself against the other people in the room, excluding Charles, who looked as confused as Molly felt, and who she suspected was somehow managing to sleep with his eyes open, judging by his glazed expression.

"We don't have the _book_," said Evie, determined to be reasonable against all odds. "We can't _prove_ anything."

"But they'll believe us!" Joachim shouted, banging his fist on the table, making someone's empty cup of tea jump and clatter on its saucer. "Between the six of us, we could make any case we liked -- but we don't _need_ to," he said, dropping his voice down to a conversational tone, as if realizing that the neighbors might be able to hear him. "They'll believe it."

"And why will they believe it?" said Hollis.

"Have you _looked_ at the people? When was the last time you had a good, hard look at what they're feeling? It's been too long, I can see that much. They resent their king, their queen's too old, and they can't stand their daughter -- and they have no food. They're restless, Hollis."

"So you think they need a catalyst," Hollis said.

"And they've got one," Joachim said, as if he'd finally gotten his point across.

"But why would they believe us? What cause would they have? They may have the right atmosphere for a good, healthy rebellion, but what reason do they have to follow us, and not someone else -- someone who's passionate, a living legend, instantly recognizable? We're just men. They need a hero."

The Doctor wiped his glasses clean and seated them on his nose, then leaned forward and spoke in a quiet, calm voice:

"I'm terribly sorry about all this deception."

The other six people in the room -- including Molly, now fully awake and aware -- turned to face him, unbelieving. Was this his admission that he was an informer with the government -- that they would all be dead, were _already_ dead by some standards?

"My true name is Jeb Batchelder," he said quietly.

* * *

The air felt electrified -- at least to Molly -- with tension. None of them had expected anything like this to happen -- not in all their wildest fancies. And none of them could find any words to express that feeling.

The Doctor -- Jeb -- sighed. "You know most of my story, I believe. I don't know exactly how much, and so it's going to be a problem explaining myself."

Molly stared at him, not believing any of it -- not yet.

"I don't remember being dead," he said softly. "I wish that I did, but I don't. I remember dying well enough, and that's rather unfortunate. After dying, I remember waking up, and thinking that something had gone wrong with the execution.

"I remember that the room was dark, and that a while after I woke up a man came in, and told me my name was Benjamin Parker."

Hollis stiffened in his chair, as if surprised by this.

"He said that I was a German immigrant, a scientist, that I experienced periodic bouts of amnesia. He gave me a slip of paper with my address on it, and then he left."

Jeb sighed. "You're wondering, I suppose, why I didn't try to tell him he was wrong. I wasn't certain who I was myself. And so I took Benjamin Parker for granted. He's the one who got me here, after all.

"Shortly after I woke up, I received a letter informing Benjamin that from then on he was to be working in the Scientific Laboratories. There was a ticket on a special train enclosed, and so I packed a trunk and I came here.

"I have always enjoyed my work, and so I have been able to pass my time here well enough. I've rarely been unhappy, though it's been so lonely from time to time.

"Do you know how lonely it is for me? There are two hundred years between my rightful place and where I am in fact -- whole drifts of days separating me from all my dearest friends. Time collected so _fast_ while I was dead -- it felt like only a moment to me, though it was far longer than a moment in actual fact." He shrugged. "And more or less, that's how I've come to be here. It's nothing but the truth. I try so hard not to lie any more. I find it rather refreshing, in fact, to restrict myself to truth. And a bit of a challenge."

He spoke without even a trace of an accent, in a quiet, smooth, even charming voice, mellifluous and enchanting to the ear, and yet worn and tired. There are some voices which do not fit those who speak with them -- his voice, though, was not one of them. The voice and the man fit each other perfectly -- a genuine match if there ever was one. Such a shame that he had died.

Such a shame.


	41. Chapter Twelve, part I

Chapter Twelve: Fail With Honour

Machines thump and whir long into the night; noises rise from the depths on reeking noisome winds, blowing constantly into the slums. Trains arrive and depart at all hours, bearing loads of coal to feed the furnaces.

If you have to commit a murder, hide a body, perform any illegal act, this is the place. They call it the Railyard, because this is where the coal trains come, after they are diverted from the common rails twenty miles north of Denver where the railways split: one path to the grand Union Station, the other coming here.

You can sense the presence of the Railyard long before you actually arrive there -- it stinks, for one thing. And the air is dark, clouds of coal dust billowing up from the streets when you walk through, smoking hanging in the air. Everyone is dark with the stuff -- all women are widows, all men widowers.

It's not a pretty place. But it's a _necessary _place, nonetheless. Without the Railyard, the city dies. Simple as that.

If Parliament is the brain, along with the Laboratories, then this place is the mouth, the beating heart, of this city, the _body_ entire. This is where food, coal, goods of all kinds arrive from wherever they may have originated. There's a thriving black market here as well, down in the Railyard slums.

And it's here that the trains from Alaska come and go. They present a cheery face to those who visit them; their platforms, though grubby, are welcoming places to those departing for Alaska.

They are secret trains, the ones that stop here, though, because they are trains it is obvious that they are real, not phantoms of imagination. But it is understood that these trains don't carry convicts; officially, they are carrying supplies. And they _do_ carry supplies, along with men.

There are two separate lines. One, the semi-official convict line, runs west to San Francisco. The other line runs both north and south: north along the coast to Alaska, south through the Outlands. This line does not officially exist.

Both lines run through desolate country, empty of civilization. But the direct line is a perfect example of such starkness: for days on end the train chugs merrily along the coast, so that all one has to look at is either the sea or the empty land. Neither are comforting sights.

By the time my sentence ended, tension had erupted into full-out war, and the direct line came back into official use as a supply train, running needed supplies to the men of the army.

I spent the journey back in silence, watching the sea roll by outside my window, meaningless, unfeeling. I was a free man now, though still committed to the cause. Because of the considerable delay in the arrival of news, I did not know the full state of affairs in the Capitol -- I didn't find out until much later that I had been on the last train out of Alaska.

Nothing seemed to have changed when I arrived at the Railyard. The Railyard was still a filthy slum. It still beat, the black heart of Denver, beating strongly on and on. It was eternal -- _is _eternal, as darkness always is.

And it welcomed me home, as my parents never would. To them, I was long dead, forever seventeen, their schoolboy son. I didn't want to speak to them, in any case. I had Sonia and Leon, the other two-thirds of myself. I needed no one else to live and be happy -- or at least, content.

But of course I had not come home to Denver merely because it was possible, and the very evening I arrived, I attended a speech given by a well-known scientist in the main square reserved for such occasions.

I am sure you have heard of it, and therefore I need not expend excessive words on an unnecessary description of what happened.

The speaker was remarkable -- I mean, his speech was remarkable. Or _their_ speech was remarkable.

There were three of them: two men and a woman. I knew neither of them, which made the impact of their words all the more intense.

Between the two men -- the woman remained mostly silent -- the story spilled out.

That we and the centivos were one and the same.

That our history was a baldfaced lie.

That our beloved King and Queen had murdered thousands of forward-thinking minds in a well-intentioned quest to prevent cruelty. (I remembered the old proverb then: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And indeed it was.)

The demeanor of the crowd changed instantly, and I learned later that there had been soldiers deployed to control the crowd. They had begun firing on the massed people in a misguided attempt to do their duty, and from there on, it was a riot.

It was a struggle for me to escape, standing near the center front of the crowd as I was. As soon as I was away from the grip of the crowd, I ran pell-mell down the street, vaguely attempting to reach the flat I had taken.

Once I had reached home, I leaned against the wall, panting, stunned by what had happened.

I had anticipated much work ahead of me; much persuasion to be done among the common people to persuade them to rise up. And now, these scientists had done the job for me, practically.

All that remained was to control the violence.

I sat down at my desk, pulling a sheet of paper and pen towards me. (I again blessed the conveniences of life in the Capitol.) Half the work might be done for me, but much still remained to do.

And I _could_ do it, there was no doubt of that.


	42. Chapter Twelve, part II

Hollis stares out the barred window at the chunk of night sky that is visible. It's lit by the fires from downtown -- he believes that Parliament is burning, along with the elegant houses, and probably the Laboratories. It would be fitting.

And Moth is playing his violin. Hollis can't figure out how he got it here -- presumably, it's because he is, after all, Moth _Eisenheim_.

It's something vaguely familiar -- Tartini, and the weird, hellish harmonies mesh with the scene Hollis imagines outside. His imaginings can't be far from the truth -- faintly, over the violin, he can hear screaming from downtown.

Someone clears his throat in the corridor, and Hollis turns from his spot by the window.

It's a guard, terrified, accompanied by -- who else? -- Ashley, unruffled as ever.

"Unlock the door," Ashley says to the guard, and then addresses himself to Hollis. "Are you hurt?"

"No." Hollis can't meet Ashley's gaze, which seems too direct now.

The door unlocked, Hollis steps out into the corridor. He has nothing to take with him -- he brought nothing with him in the first place but himself and the clothes on his back.

Ashley shooes the guard into the cell and closes the cell door on the guard. "Let's go." He motions for Hollis to go down the stairs.

They make it all the way to the street before the guards catch on to the fact that Hollis is not in his cell -- probably alerted to this by the guard Ashley shut inside Hollis' former cell.

"You left the key with him, didn't you?" Hollis asks as they hurry along the street.

Ashley nods, but doesn't say a word for a moment longer. Then he laughs tensely. "Yeah. Planning's not my strong suit tonight."

They flit along the silent streets like ghosts until Ashley stops all of a sudden. Hollis looks at him in askance.

Ashley exhales slowly.

"Do you remember when you were ill?" he asks, staring off east in the direction of the fires.

"Not really," Hollis admits. "It's all a blur."

"Liam came to visit you in the hospital," Ashley says, turning to face Hollis, watching him closely. "Do you remember that?"

"No," Hollis says. He's not lying, strictly speaking. He remembers blurs: work, the hospital, and a little more clearly, his study.

A memory shimmers into view; he remembers thinking of Simms. Thinking of Simms. Why?

The book.

Liam told him about the book.

But why tell a sick and dying man about such an important thing, when Liam could just as easily have told someone else?

"He loved you," says Ashley, as if he'd read Hollis' mind. "How could you have done that to him?" He steps closer to Hollis.

"Done what to him?" Inside Hollis is reeling, hardly able to keep up with the conversation.

The light flashes off of Ashley's eyes. "You remember what you did to him."

"No, I don't," Hollis says, fighting to keep the pleading note out of his voice, trying desperately to keep fear from making his voice shake. "I don't remember him even visiting me."

Ashley steps closer to Hollis; ash settles on the shoulders of his coat, and fire lights the sky behind him. "Really?" he asks.

"Yes," Hollis says. The street is empty; there's no one to see.

"I don't think so," Ashley says, deceptively quiet and sane. He steps forward again, forcing Hollis to back up against the wall of some house.

He seizes Hollis by the throat and lifts him bodily from the ground -- his hands must be immensely strong, Hollis thinks, and his head knocks back against the bricks.

"You're a monster," Ashley says, calmly, as Hollis struggles to breathe. Yet his voice is pitched low, as if he's afraid someone might be listening.

"We've been monitoring you since day one," Ashley says, and fear ripples down Hollis' spine -- a physical _chill_, something he once thought belonged _solely_ and _firmly_ in the realm of the pulp novel. "Did you think it was your province to raise the dead from their graves? You're not God, Hollis." He shakes his head, and laughs. "You will be brought to justice someday -- but unfortunately, our plans have hit a little snag. Pity. But someday there _will_ be justice for you."

Ashley releases Hollis' throat, and he staggers away from Ashley, rubbing at his throat and gasping for breath.

Ashley raises his voice and calls, "Boys!"

It's Hollis' worst nightmare -- well, second-worst. (The worst is actually a memory.)

When they finish he's aching, bleeding, lying on the ground, and his vision is beginning to fade. From the edges of the black, Ashley steps forward and leans down to whisper to him.

"I'll never forgive you, Hollis." He enunciates the next sentence clearly, so that Hollis cannot mistake the words.

"You raped your closest friend. You sinned against man and God. Once I think we might have been friends. Now I won't stop until I've brought you justice."

Ashley kicks him in the ribs and walks away.

It's all right.

Hollis isn't there anymore; not there in the street to be left behind, not there in the filthy streets of Denver as Parliament burns, _not there_.

He's just... _gone_.


	43. Chapter Thirteen, part I

Chapter Thirteen: A Little Madness

"Who're you?"

The doorkeeper stared at me in unrepentant suspicion. "Are you a member?" His accent was utterly at odds with his dour bitter manner; it wasn't an upper-class accent, all refined and la-di-dah, but sharp and clipped. _Not_ the rounded lazy accent I'd expected.

"Yes," I said. "I, uh -- the name is Yuri Harris."

He disappeared to check the list of members, and appeared again a moment later with the same look of sullen gloom on his face. "Come in."

"Thank you," I said, and stepped inside. It wasn't raining out, but it was a cold and foggy night. Not for the first time, I was glad of my tattered old overcoat, shabby as it might be. And here at the club was perhaps the only place it would go completely unremarked.

The club itself was just as shabby as I was. It met in the first floor of an abandoned warehouse in the old manufactory district, on the outer edges of the Railyard. Hardly anyone would have found it on accident, and if anyone had, he would have dismissed it as a meeting-place for desperate men who did not want to be seen at a common bar or pub.

I had not had the time nor the money to buy new clothes since I had arrived back home in the Capitol, and for the first time I felt a twinge of shame at this, as I hung my tattered old coat next to numerous far finer ones in the coatroom.

My fears were put to rest, though, when I actually entered the club proper. My worn-out clothes were somewhat new (or they had been), which was more than you could say for some.

Before I could have more than a cursory look at the place, Leon leapt up and accosted me.

"Yuri!" he cried, and led me to an empty chair. "I've been waiting for you."

"There were some... issues I had to take care of," I said modestly, though I was cheered by his reaction to my -- however late -- appearance.

"Sit, sit!" he said, and when I had, the man sitting t my left leaned over and shook my hand.

"Yuri, this is Peter," Leon said by way of introduction, taking his seat to my right.

"I've read your pamphlets," Peter said, leaning closer to me so that I could hear him over the din. "I think you've got the most _extraordinary_ ideas."

"Thank you," I said, somewhat touched. I had collaborated on the pamphlets in question with Leon, and had never anticipated that they would travel all the way to the Capitol. But thus was the nature of writing, I supposed -- and the purpose of political writing. "Leon and I collaborated on most of them, and I believe he's the more talented of us--"

"Oh, stop it," said Leon genially.

"The _diction_ I can believe was yours, Leon," said Peter, "but I am morally certain that the _ideas_ are Yuri's."

"And what makes you believe that?" Leon inquired.

"Well, after hearing you speak earlier--"

"Goddammit," I said, "I knew I'd missed something."

"--I knew that the ideas in the pamphlets are Yuri's, because _they are not the same ideas_," Peter said simply. "Their fundamental principles are the same, of course, but there are some peculiar quirks which are completely owing to Yuri's influence."

"How do you know that?" I said.

"Why, I read _your_ pamphlets, of course," he said, somewhat startled. I had published some pamphlets on my own a few years before, and until Peter mentioned them, I ahd all but forgotten them.

"Ah -- I see," I murmured.

"No need to be embarrassed," he said. "You've written quite a lot over the years. I expect that one's memory of all one's works would grow poorer and poorer as one wrote more."

Just then the gaslight sputtered and flared, and his face was illuminated brightly for a moment.

I recognized him suddenly. He had grown a mustache since I knew him, but his eyes had not changed one bit in the intervening ten years since our last meeting.

Peter's true name was Alex; he was an old schoolmate of mine, practically my brother. He had been the terror of our neighborhood as a boy. My sisters and I had been much more sedate, even as children. I hadn't seen him in ten or eleven years, hadn't so much as thought of him in almost that long.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Leon intruded upon my musings.

"I rather didn't like those pamphlets," I confessed. "I didn't get my ideas across half as well as I wish I could have."

"Oh, really?" Peter seemed interested. "Well, try and explain them better, then."

"What, now?" I asked, incredulous.

"Yes," he said.

"All right," I said. I was still battered and bruised from my ordeal at the riot, but I burned with as much revolutionary fire as before, and I was always up to the challenge of expounding upon my ideas to whomever I could corner.

There was one curious thing about that night, though; many times I saw, again and again, the same unremarkable young face that would dog me throughout my career. I didn't know it at the time, but his name was Max. I would know him best in his role as personal assistant and cats'-paw to Omega, the true mastermind, and, if I had one, my nemesis.


	44. Halloween In Denver

Interrupting briefly to inform you: This is the Halloween special that ran on my LJ for the 31 October update, appearing now because I didn't have the heart to post an unfinished, badly-thought-out chapter.

In other words, _filler chapter!_ We'll resume with chapter 14 on Monday, 12 January, and chapter 15 will _also_ be posted that day, so I can keep to my original update schedule.

Those reading in the archives: well, I didn't have the chapter finished, obvs...

_

* * *

_It's October again in the Capitol -- even without a glance at the calendar, it's obvious. From the sharp smell of woodsmoke in the air to the street vendors selling hot apple cider, it is obviously fall.

And from the decorations in poor folks' windows (and the storefronts advertising "a stronger, safer coffin"), it's obvious that All Hallows' Eve is just around the corner -- and that there's more to fear in Denver than ghost stories this year.

But for the most part, the rhythm of life seems undisturbed here, flowing on gently and without interruption as it has always done.

There are children on the streets today -- and why not? it's a fine, warm day for October, with fallen leaves rattling down the street and wind rustling in the branches of the trees. A rare day for childhood -- and, of course, the games attendant to it.

To the innocent eye or ear, it's a perfectly innocent scene of childish delight -- girls playing skip-rope, boys playing tag, and a small group of friends chattering amongst themselves.

Yet just as in the adult world, undercurrents of unease run deep here. The skip-rope rhyme the girls are chanting is a rather gruesome one -- although that is childhood's privilege -- and the chatter has taken a dark turn as well.

"Man who buys it doesn't use it, man who uses it doesn't know it, man who makes it doesn't want it." The riddler eyes his companions. "What is it?"

One of the other boys spits on the ground, as if in disgust. "'S a coffin. Only the hundredth time you've riddled that one."

"Come off it, Joey," the riddler says. "Twice."

"Today or all week?" Joey retorts.

"How's your aunt?" one of the girls in the group asks, rubbing her hands together for warmth. "You said she was sick last week."

"They're havin' the viewing today," Joey answers, scuffing the ground with his shoe. "Kicked me out of the house to 'ave it."

"Watch i'," the riddler mutters, "your Cockney's showing."

The group laughs, and Joey rounds on the riddler. "The 'ell it is, you're more English than I am!"

"Yeh, I might be, but I don't go 'round showing it off to everyone an' his dog." The riddler stands calmly and crosses his arms.

"Have you got someone to watch the grave yet?" the girl asks, hands now tucked in a most un-ladylike manner in her armpits.

"Nah, not yet," Joey says, smiling at her. "There isn't enough money."

"Oh, pull the other one," the riddler snaps. "Why've you got new clothes then? And I seen your da bought new dresses for your mum, how's that if there isn't enough money?"

Joey flushes crimson.

"You should sell the dresses then," says the girl. "Otherwise someone might steal the body. If you don't get someone to watch the grave."

"Has that ever happened to anyone we know?" one of the other boys says.

"Well, Margaret's sister says her cousins didn't pay to have their mum's grave watched or do anything, and _her_ body got stolen," the girl says.

"Susan, everyone knows Margaret's sister lies," the smallest boy says solemnly.

"I seen the grave," the girl -- Susan -- says. "I seen it been dug up."

"How many of 'em do you think there are?" the smallest boy says.

"Of who?" Joey asks, now that the conversation has turned from him, his da, and his dead aunt.

"Them graverobbers," the boy clarifies.

"There's got to be at least two," the girl says, with the weight of knowledge. "Takes at least two men to dig up a grave like that -- take the body out. People gets heavier when they're dead. You couldn't do it alone."

The riddler pipes up. "My granda says they're called resurrection men."

"What's that for?" Joey asks.

"'S 'cause he says he seen someone who died walkin' around in the street after he knew they been buried two days. An' he went to their grave and he seen it was all dug up."

"They still just graverobbers," the youngest boy says, sulky.

"Brr, ain't that a one!" the girl says appreciatively. "Imagine dead people walkin' around like that."

"Grr, argh!" Joey puts his arms out straight in front of him and stalks off stiff-legged a little ways.

The other children laugh, of course, but there's a bitter breeze in the street and it isn't long before they scatter back to their houses.

* * *

At first, it was terribly, terribly difficult. His hands were soft, and at the end of every night they'd be bruised and aching. And his hair would fall into his face, lank and damp with sweat. (He cut the hair and in time his hands toughened up.)

But there were parts that would never get easier.

In the beginning he hadn't known _where_ to begin. He'd had only an idea, which is frustratingly far from a reality.

Then he had rats -- mice and bones of rats -- and chemicals, and bit by bit he worked out the details of the formula.

There didn't seem to be a time limit on it, which brought hope to him again, but he reminded himself that, after all, these were trials in rats, and humans might not react the same way.

There were a few moments of peace then, with the mice borrowed apologetically from the biologists, and then the rats simply stolen from wherever he could find them -- he hadn't far to look for them, and he spent a few pleasant hours hunting rats carefully in the basements. Peace, with a watch in one hand and pen in the other, notebook prepared for the latest results, and the cage in front of him.

Or sometimes with just a pen and notebook and cage, but a cage that wasn't dead and silent. Cages with live little rats in them, who would put their paws up against the wires and sniff at him, as if to inquire what he was doing. They cheered him, too -- the first rat lived a long time (for a rat), until the end of its natural lifespan, and died peacefully.

But he couldn't watch the rats forever. After all, there were still human trials to do.

And he had to justify himself to the men who came asking after him with deceptive, kind expressions. He suspected them of dreadful things, but hid it with his own smile, gentle and forgiving.

He was sure to keep it sharp, though. And sad. Sharp and sad, a smile to befit his circumstances.

They always left after a while, and he could get back to work then.

It was the human trials that didn't get easier. The age of the bodies didn't matter -- though fresher seemed to be better. There was a wild-card element to it, though, as he'd discovered in one of his early human attempts.

He was out in the country then, for some reason he doesn't know recall. But he'd brought his work with him.

They all woke differently. Hardly ever violently, though, and he was grateful for that. He'd had to near-smother one woman with a pillow when he was first starting out, but it had never happened again. He was too weak, after all, even with the digging strengthening his arms, to really restrain some of the subjects.

(The children were easiest, in some ways. The little coffins were difficult reminders, but he hardened his heart like the skin of his once-delicate hands, and at last it got a little easier. They were light, and didn't fight as much.)

But this one was different from all the rest. He was coherent when he woke, asking for his clothes, for water. Asking who Hollis was, where this place was.

Hollis improvised, lied, and fled.

He was intrigued by that one, though, no matter how much it had frightened him at the time. (Surprised, really, more than frightened.) He'd written down the specific formula and every detail of the preparations, and when he tested it again -- this time on a young woman who'd been dead four years -- it worked almost exactly the same way.

He was elated. By that time he was back in the city, and he celebrated quietly, toasting his work rather than speaking their names.

He left the city again -- it burned him inside to wait so long before leaving, but he had to be careful -- and he went and found their graves.

He dug them up.

He did the same thing he'd done for so many other bodies, except his soul was aching and his heart racing -- so perhaps it was like the first time he'd done it.

He never spoke of that night to anyone, only hinted at the edges of what happened. But it didn't go right, and he was never quite the same, after.

He was quiet, silent.

And it really was an accident. When the chemicals exploded in his face. He told himself again and again that it was an accident -- that no one could have predicted it -- that it wasn't her hand in things, as if both to reprimand him and remind him of her presence.

So he sought out some new thing to occupy himself with -- devoted himself to it, poured his soul into it, for her, for his daughters and his wife.

Somehow Liam never asked why his hands were so callused.


	45. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen: Life Under Glass

Like so many before me, I had plans for my country. And like few ever had, I _achieved_ them.

But lest I sound too proud, too much of a boaster, let me explain:

Many of my ideas were of old roots; communism was not a new idea in the least. I knew there was little chance of communism itself succeeding -- I looked to the communist countries which had once existed, and saw that all had failed, all had collapsed, all had strayed from the path of communism. To remain on the path, one would have to construct a truly benevolent government, one composed of only the most virtuous men that existed. And that was an impossible task -- all men can be corrupted.

And so I resolved to _intentionally _stray from the true path of communism. Their ideas of revolution were extraordinary, and, best of all, would _work_.

But to construct a truly just society, I would have to ensure that all men were equal. And to make them equal, I would have to borrow from democracy as well as communism.

Leon and I, together, worked out the full plans for what we would do. We understood that we could not build from scratch; we had an existing system, however unjust it might be, and we would have to use that as our base.

Painstakingly, we worked it out.

A strong basis in democracy -- all men implicitly equal, except for those who were above or below average in talent. But all men had equal _rights_, and social status would be determined by talent instead of birth or race.

All men would answer to the government, and all men required to be part of that government as well. They would report on each other, and, just as it always had, the approval of one's peers would have a large part in determining one's actions. There would be no true leader, only the greater will of society, divined by polling the people at large and put into practice by the people themselves.

To encourage production, each man justly rewarded for his work: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Food would be issued in amounts sufficient to nourish, and the issuers kept honest by being under the watchful eye of their peers -- for if they shorted a portion by so many grams, they were shorting themselves, not some faceless stranger.

Quick work would neither be rewarded excessively nor punished. Quick workers who produced satisfactory goods would be rewarded. Those who produced goods which were less than satisfactory would be punished. Workers would be conditioned, therefore, to work satisfactorily.

It was a beautiful plan. More realistic than communism as it had once been practiced. More suited to human nature, more inclined to be humane.

We congratulated ourselves even as we put the plan into practice. We did not delude ourselves -- we, too, would live under the watchful eye of the people, a life under glass, as it were.

I was proud of my achievement with Leon, to say the least of it.

And surprisingly, even Omega, who was much more moderate than Leon and I, approved of our plan (through Max, his cats-paw, of course, as he himself rarely left his headquarters). Yet I got the sense that his approval was grudging and not whole-hearted.

I was young and reckless, so I paid it no heed.


	46. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen: Rack and Ruin

Leon took surprisingly well to fame. I hadn't expected it of him. In person, he was, for the most part, timid and soft-spoken. Yet when he was called upon to speak in public, he seemed to grow in stature, speaking loudly and clearly, moving the crowd to tears or to rage, whichever his cause required. He and I were a perfect working duo.

I regretted that Sonia had chosen not to work with me any longer, but we were still in contact.

It was Leon who began to worry me.

He had seemed to be doing perfectly well -- a prolific writer, a brilliant speechmaker, charming, witty. He was popular, too.

He had come over to my flat one evening to work out the text of his next speech. I was reading through his draft when I sensed that he had come up behind me, and he held a knife to my neck.

"I'm sorry, Yuri," he said. His voice sounded tired -- I'd never _heard_ him sound tired before.

"Leon, what are you doing?" I asked.

He pressed the knife more firmly to my neck. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "But I have to do this."

I acted swiftly, before he could slit my throat. I whirled in my chair; taken by surprise, he stumbled back from the chair, then turned himself and fled.

There was a mirror on the far wall, and though I knew not why, I walked to it.

I looked as if I'd cut myself shaving -- a thin line of red ran, just under my chin, practically from ear to ear. I touched it carefully. Pain sparked from it.

I bandaged it myself and laid his speech aside for the moment. I would speak to him the next time he came to visit me. I would have to forgive him for this.

They found him crumpled at the very door of the Cathedral, as if to seek sanctuary from himself. He was insensible at the time, though they eventually got out of him that he had taken poison.

He died shortly after, and I resolved to trust no one, never again. It seemed a reasonable thought.

---

We were doing so well. Some of my work would never be done, I knew -- enemies of the revolution can never be wholly gotten rid of. But the work was progressing well enough.

There's not much left to tell, I'm afraid, that you don't already know.

A knock came at my door, and I glanced up, surprised that anyone would come to visit me, especially at so late an hour.

To my further astonishment, it was Max standing in the doorway, shivering and soaked wet from the storm outside -- I had heard the rain and thunder off and on all evening, but had not gone out since the morning, and so was myself untouched by its ravages. He looked haunted and pursued beneath the layers of rain and muck, and I asked him whether he was quite all right.

"Y-y-yes," he said, with an uncharacteristic stammer.

It was then he raised his hand, and I saw the gun nervously clenched in his white, trembling fingers. But by then it was too late; he had already aimed at me and fired.

His aim was poor, and the wound was not immediately fatal. I could not speak, I was so stunned, and when Max saw I was not yet dead, he did another uncharacteristic thing: he burst into tears. And then he ran out into the storm, dropping the gun on the floor, letting the door swing open so that the rain poured in.

I slumped forward onto the desk, shocked by this sudden apparition of Death. I had known, ever since I had arrived in Alaska, that I would most likely die young. I hadn't expected that death would come so _soon_.

I raised my hand to my chest to explore the wound, and probed delicately at its edges with the pads of my fingers; even this cautious action produced an involuntary noise of pain on my part. It was not a large wound, but situated almost immediately to the left of my heart; the labored quality of my breathing also seemed to indicate that the bullet had gone through or nicked my lung. The odds were that it was a survivable wound, but only if I could get medical treatment soon, which was not a likely occurrence.

I groaned and lowered my hand, despairing. I had anticipated assassination for quite a long time, but I had not foreseen such a sloppy job.

He had left the gun behind him, though, in his haste to quit the scene. If I could but reach it -- and if it contained another bullet...

I did not doubt that I had the courage to take my life; I had never doubted it.

Holding my hand over the wound from a vain, instinctual sense of caution, I tottered slowly to the spot where the weapon lay, then bent and picked it up with my free hand.

Dismay seized me.

It was a single-shot derringer.

I sank to my knees and knelt on the floor, beyond even disbelief in my bad fortune, simply accepting that this would seem to be my fate. The rain pattered through the door, and I watched, detached, as Max's muddy footprints begin to blur on the floor.

I came to my senses some time later; my hair was wet and dripping rainwater onto my shoulders, and a thin rivulet of blood had run down my shirt. Lightning flashed outside, illuminating the room for a moment, overpowering the light of the candle I had lit earlier that night.

I rose into a half-crouch, breathing painfully with my hand again pressed over the wound. I would not die on the floor -- I was determined not to.

I crept across to the desk -- with every breath it seemed as though a knife were being twisted in my lung, and the air felt thick, so that I struggled to take each breath.

I have always feared death -- nothing else on earth could have fazed me -- but I professed the usual beliefs of youth. I never believed in Heaven or Hell -- once you are dead, that is all.

It was once easy for me to be so brusque about death -- oh, how I wished then to be still so naïve as I had been! Now that I was finally faced by Death, I understood: there was nothing romantic about it, only starkest reality.

The terrible thing about it was not that my childish fancies had been wrong: it was that they were being proven _right._

I sat down at the desk, and attempted to make myself at least a little more presentable than I was, wringing the water from my hair and dabbing at the blood on my shirt with my handkerchief. Considering I would shortly be making the most important audience of my career, as one could call it, I was a sorry sight indeed.

I removed my hand from its protective posture; there was a roughly circular splotch of blood on the palm, about an inch across. The wound seemed to have mainly closed up, except for a mild trickle of blood which came pulsing out of it at intervals. Yet my troubles breathing were worsening.

It was not the way I would have preferred to die, propped on a desk, shot by an incompetent assassin, dying alone as a thunderstorm raged outside. (It was certainly theatrical, though.)

And so a strange idea formed in my mind. Sonia did not live far from my current apartments, and though we had had a falling-out some time prior, I knew she would not turn me away from her door. I would go to her, then -- it was better, at least, than sitting and waiting to die.

I staggered out into the rain, without coat, hat, or umbrella -- what need had I of them now? -- and off down the street, my boots sliding in the mud.

At last I came to Sonia's familiar door. I hammered on it with the heel of my hand, as forcefully as I was able, and then I fell down senseless. Darkness followed, then nothing.

---

He didn't die until almost noon the next day, long after the storm had ended, when the clouds had parted to reveal a dull, pastel-yellow sun.

She found him, lying there unconscious in the street, and there was nothing else for her to do but take him in. She took off the wettest of his outer clothes, and dabbed around the bullet wound with a dampened cloth. There was little else she could do for him -- what doctor would treat him? And what doctor would come to see him, in that horrible storm?

He died silently, lying on the sofa in the parlor, pale face drawn and tired. He was hardly thirty, she remembered, and yet he looked far older; the streak of white in his hair put much towards this impression, as did the lines of weariness inscribed on his forehead and around his mouth.

It was a peculiarly apt death for a man like him. Something about it was memorable, in a way that ordinary, peaceful deaths were not.

She was thankful, though, that he died at peace with himself. He was ready to die, though he was far too young, it seemed. Death did not surprise him; they seemed old friends.

They buried him in a poor man's grave, and she laid wildflowers by his headstone.


	47. Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen: Electricity Shadow

It wasn't cold in particular -- it was _chilly_, chilly enough that he was glad he'd brought a jacket. And it was grey; a day for sitting inside and having a cup of tea if there ever was one. Clovers grew among the stones -- even one with four leaves. He wished he didn't have to be there.

He wanted her back, but he supposed that he should have expected it, really. They tended to die young, the ones who had lived through that time; something about it had taxed their systems, cycling from kingdom to dictatorship and finally to democracy, all so quickly, in the space of a few bare years.

He hadn't been in the Capitol at the time; like her, he'd been a child, but unlike her, he'd been living in the Outlands, working and living with his family, a young farmboy. He'd had a hardworking childhood. She'd hardly had one at all.

The wind blew harder, and he shivered, cursing the foulness of the fall day. She'd always wanted to be buried at home, on her Miss Tanith's estate, in the small cemetery out behind the big house. She probably hadn't counted on the _fact_ that it tended to be very, very cold.

She'd died too young, he thought bitterly. Some of her friends had survived those years of flux, and had come here today to bury her. Joachim, standing aloof and apart from the rest, wrapped in his coat, looking morose; he hadn't known her very well when she was alive. Evie looking somewhat aged but none the worse for wear, looking up at the leaves of the oaks rippling in the wind. Charles and Moth, holding hands; laugh lines around Charles' eyes, and a faded-in look of kindness to Moth's face. They, too, had had a happy ending.

And, strangest of all, two figures of the revolution. The pretty, no longer young woman, Sonia, accompanied by a slumped man in a wheelchair who looked to be approaching middle age at last. He realized that they were the only two survivors of the revolutionaries: Sonia and Omega.

The man in the wheelchair spoke tersely to Sonia; she smiled, and waved to him, indicating for him to come over.

"My condolences," said the man in the wheelchair gruffly.

"Thank you," he said, somewhat touched by the gesture.

"You were her husband, I understand," the man said, peering up at him. "Clarence Jackson. You treated her well?"

"Of course," Clarence said, puzzled by the question.

"Good," the man in the wheelchair said. "She deserved no less."

Standing there, beneath the broad, emptily blue fall sky, Clarence felt as if he should be holding up his end of the conversation rather than just answering the other man's questions. These were familiar figures from the newspapers, standing all around him. They knew him, and he them.

"So why did you start calling yourself Omega?" Clarence asked. It was the first thing that came to mind.

The man in the wheelchair grinned. "Good question." He sighed. "I was going to be the end of the system in operation at that time. Simple Biblical reference."

"I couldn't be sure," Clarence muttered, feeling ashamed.

The bright grey eyes glanced up at him, and Clarence felt a wave of nausea sweep through him.

"Once my name was Hollis Downey," he said. "But he's dead now."

Sonia smiled at Clarence, tensely. "He's gotten a bit fuzzy as he's gotten older. Perhaps we should go inside?"

"Yes," Clarence said. "I think we should."


End file.
